Trump Prepares to Smash Through Historic Disapproval Ratings, Reeling from Iran War

With the midterm elections creeping ever closer, President Donald Trump finds himself unwillingly playing yet another round of How Low Can It Go, the “it” in question being anemic approval ratings that as of today hit new second term low points across the board. If that sounds like something you’ve heard me write before, by the way, it’s no deja vu phenomenon–I’ve covered the bleed in the President’s support before, and I’m sure I’ll probably cover it again at some point before voters take to the polls in November to voice their displeasure in Trump’s agenda by firing a lot of members of Congress in his stead. Assuming, that is, that the GOP doesn’t manage to pass its massive voter disenfranchisement bill in the form of the SAVE Act.

It’s something of a surprise that it’s taken this long to register a new low point in Trump’s aggregated approval, as tracked by an aggregator like the one run by former 538 prognosticator Nate Silver. One might have expected Trump’s approval numbers to crater noticeably in the immediate wake of the President’s fully voluntary war with Iran beginning, but we instead saw the opposite, with a seeming approval bump in polls conducted in the earliest days of March. This, however, might be construed as what is referred to as a “rally around the flag” effect, in which new conflicts or wars initially have higher approval ratings as citizens attempt to assume the best or display jingoistic patriotism. Turns out that effect lasted for all of about two weeks, because the latest numbers in terms of Trump’s approval are unabashedly terrible.

Looks like gas prices are finally flowing through into Trump approval polling, new lows today:

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— Conor Sen (@conorsen.bsky.social) Mar 18, 2026 at 11:13 AM

In just the last few days, we’ve seen approval ratings well under 40% for Trump from a whole bevy of pollsters, including Leger (35%), YouGov (37%), Quinnipiac (37%), and Focaldata (37%), along with a few polls in the 40% range. The only thing keeping Trump afloat has been the occasional “more positive” number from strongly GOP-aligned pollsters, such as Rasmussen Reports giving Trump a 44% approval rating in polling conducted in the last week. But all told, even those right-leaning pollsters have been unable to keep Trump’s aggregated approval rating from slipping to a brand new low at just 40.2%, teetering on the edge of the abyss that is approval numbers in the 30s. It’s also at its lowest level yet for the second term when it comes to net approval, at -15.3%. Suffice to say, these are historically low numbers–aside from George W. Bush in 2006 (who was at 38% approval), you’d have to go all the way back to Harry S. Truman in 1950 to find the next President with a number in the 30s at the time of the midterms. And Trump hasn’t even been impeached (yet) in this term.

Trump Net-Approval On:

Immigration/Border: -7%
Foreign Policy: -14%
Iran: -16%
Jobs/Economy: -19%
Healthcare: -24%
Inflation/Cost Of Living: -29%

Focaldata / March 10, 2026

— Polling USA (@usapolling.bsky.social) Mar 14, 2026 at 4:32 PM

What is specifically to blame/credit for the latest downward surge in Trump’s approval? Well honestly, who could even pick? The many dire aspects of the Iran War are no doubt a factor, from the 13 U.S. servicemen who have died in the conflict so far, to the more than 200 additional troops who have been wounded in an entirely pointless exercise in American machismo. The surge in oil prices has likewise made the American war machine, State Department and Department of Defense all look like they were completely unprepared for the extremely obvious effects of a new war in the Middle East, one that has already managed to stretch past the rosy first estimations of how long it would last. Oil tankers are still unable to move through the Strait of Hormuz, and gasoline prices are still climbing at the pump. There’s really no positive news out there for Trump at all, at the moment, to the point that he’s now seemingly trying to instead attract attention toward the idea of the U.S. forcing yet another regime change in Cuba, as if that will be more widely popular.

Based on past precedent, we can probably expect a flood of “every single poll is fake” Trump outbursts to begin on Truth Social in the near future. He is approaching levels of unpopularity that have previously been thought merely hypothetical in an environment as politically polarized and resistant to change as the one in which we reside. The rest of us have to wonder: If the President manages to bulldoze his way into an approval rating in the 30s, at what point does it become political poison for even members of his own party to want to be in any way associated with him?