Trump’s Polling Is Now as Bad as It Was After the Jan. 6 Capitol Riots
A full 70% of Americans now say that the economy is getting worse, and that it's Trump's fault.
Photo by The White House Splinter Donald Trump
Through the entirety of his second term in office to date, there’s at least one fallback that an advisor of President Donald Trump, or the man himself, might have used to deflect mounting criticism of his utter failure to manage the American economy, preserve civil liberties or the standing of the United States in the world: “At least I’m more popular now than I was after Jan. 6, 2021.” And unfortunately, although that’s something Trump could perhaps have said for the first 16 months of his second administration, he can no longer say it now: Across the entire polling landscape, it has become clear that Trump’s overall support has dipped even below the level he found himself at in the immediate wake of his lowest moment as a coup-attempting despot. Donald Trump is somehow more unpopular (or about to be) now than he was after the freaking Capitol riots. Perhaps that’s to be expected, when you’re mired in a war in the Middle East that has already gone from “over in days,” to “weeks,” to “months,” and the soldiers in your army are getting caught wagering on the outcomes of military actions.
Still, it feels remarkable to even suggest that Trump’s popularity could ever truly dip below where it was in early January of 2021, in the immediate wake of crowds of MAGA faithful storming the U.S. Capitol, chanting “hang Mike Pence” and attempting to break down doors and barricades to reach members of Congress. I mean seriously, how could that not be the lowest point of the man’s overall popularity, or the moment when the country was most united in despising him? The Republican aristocracy of the moment certainly thought it was the end of Trump at the time, that he would slink off to Florida and not trouble the nation again. They resisted symbolically or practically removing him from office in the wake of Jan. 6, believing that the problem would take care of itself–of course, we all know how that turned out.
But he’s even LESS popular now, in terms of approval ratings? Truly? Even I find this difficult to wrap my head around, but the sheer volume of data is hard to deny.
In the last week alone, we’ve seen a flurry of new polls that have buried Trump’s approval in new second term lows. AP/NORC has him at 33% approval, for a net approval of -34. To compare to just a few months ago, AP/NORC’s net approval of the President was -19 in January. Simultaneously, we’ve also gotten new polls with second term lows from American Research Group (32% approval), Reuters/Ipsos (36%), and Strength in Numbers (35%), adding strength to this narrative. CNBC likewise recorded their lowest Trump approval mark of either presidential term. Throw all of those numbers into aggregators such as the ones from The New York Times, Nate Silver or Real Clear Politics, taking into account right-leaning pollsters that tend to have Trump approval polling in the low 40s, and you get averages that have now slipped below 40% overall. NYT has him at 39%. Silver Bulletin places presidential approval at 38.9%, good for a -18.8% approval.
BRUTAL NEW POLL
Donald Trump is cratering. His approval with Republicans hits an unprecedented low.
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) Apr 22, 2026 at 10:31 AM
What’s been driving the latest plunges? Well, the war in Iran certainly can’t be helping matters, but it seems equally likely that broader economic uncertainty and frustration has probably played an even larger role–although those two things are of course linked to each other. Trump’s approval specifically on the economy as a whole and inflation/cost of living in particular have both nosedived since mid-March, and he’s now underwater by historic margins on both. Silver Bulletin currently places Trump at -25.9% net approval on the economy, and a whopping -40.4% net approval on inflation/cost of living, which is the sort of number that would make you think we were talking about Herbert Hoover. These numbers likewise make another thing impossible to hide: Even avowed Republicans are no longer attempting to pretend that the Trump 2.0 administration is shepherding a strong economy. Twice as many Republicans say the economy is “getting worse” than held that same opinion at this time last year, and a recent Fox News poll found that a full 70% of Americans in total described the economy as currently “getting worse.” That’s not Democratic griping; that’s a deep dissatisfaction in a vast majority of people in this country regardless of political alignment.
Enten: “Trump’s at an all-time low on inflation across polls (-42 pt. net approval). With Independents, Trump was favored by 10 pt. vs. Harris in 2024 on inflation. His net approval now is -60 pt. That’s a 70 pt. shift away from Trump.
— Peggy Stuart (@peggystuart.bsky.social) Apr 22, 2026 at 12:14 AM
The White House, naturally, denies and ignores all of this type of polling of the American electorate whenever possible. In the rare instances where they’re forced to comment on negative headlines about the President’s cratering popularity, they cite hallucinated alternative statistics or retreat to Trump’s favorite semantic parlor tricks. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle most recently floated this doozy of a comparison, when asked about some of the latest round of crippling polls: “The ultimate poll was November 5th 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda.” Pithy!
The obvious question becomes, how much of this kind of damaging association are other Republicans willing to indulge? At what point does Donald Trump become so profoundly, visibly unpopular and hated that being seen as an enabler of his agenda or an obedient lapdog is more politically damaging than publicly disagreeing with him, or at least pretending to? What is that exact level of Trump radioactivity, where GOP members of Congress calculate that disavowing him actually improves their odds of surviving what will very likely be a bloodbath midterm election cycle?
We’ve already seen some willingness to throw a little blame in the President’s direction, particularly when it comes to the still-ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. A few weeks back, when public anger was seething about long airport wait times and ICE making fast food lines longer, members of the GOP Senate in particular were demonstrating their willingness to (at least quietly) tell Americans that it was all Trump’s fault that no deal had been reached. As Louisiana Senator John Kennedy put it: “The Democrats have offered to open up everything but ICE. Ted [Cruz] and I said okay let’s accept their offer … Trump—as is his right—he said no.” There’s no other way to read that than “Don’t blame us, it’s POTUS’ fault.” They’ve done the same on Trump’s SAVE Act, calling it unworkable and political poison, while also clamoring for an end to the Iran War. But if the President’s approval ratings are really going to continue treading in Jan. 6, 2021 territory, especially as we approach the November midterms, then surely we’re in store for a whole lot more denouncements from Republicans who are feeling the electoral noose tightening.
This is a phenomenon that has already gotten well and truly underway in the right-wing media world, where the likes of Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Theo Von, etc. have all gone on their “Trump betrayed us” tours, and someone as prominent (and opportunistic) as Tucker Carlson is now saying he’s “tormented” with guilt over supporting Trump. Granted, most of them are angry because they don’t feel like the President has gone far enough in implementing his fascist playbook, but still. These are savvy media members who are calculating that they want to be on the right side of where the winds are blowing, and assuming that there will soon be more Trump haters than Trump boosters, even on the right. With that said, there’s always a likelihood of flip-flopping–look no further than Joe Rogan, who spent the last few months disavowing and criticizing Trump before getting right back on the train when Trump was willing to get on board with boosting Rogan pet causes like psychedelic drugs and cannabis descheduling.
Tucker Carlson apologizes for ‘misleading’ people on Trump: ‘We’re implicated in this for sure’
— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) Apr 21, 2026 at 6:19 PM
Trump is in what can only be described as a tailspin, and it’s questionable whether he’s even cognizant enough to recognize and accept that, much less actually pull himself up out of it. It’s been only days since the President posted “Praise be to Allah” on Easter morning while threatening that an entire civilization would die, causing the aforementioned Tucker Carlson to call him “evil.” Even “double hater” voters, who profess to hate both sides and the American political process itself, currently identify as +31 for Democrats, after formerly being a key Trump demographic.
The man has pulled himself out of so many pits in the past, but never with a brain that was so clearly turning to mush. Even if Trump does pull up, who will be left to support him when 70% of Americans believe their lives are getting worse on a daily basis? Maybe it’s not so surprising after all that he’s finally uncovered new levels of unpopularity that put even Jan. 6, 2021 to shame.
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