Donald Trump’s net approval rating is as bad as it gets and has been for some time.
In fact, the only president with a worse net approval than Trump has now, was Trump in his first term. No other president has been lower — Trump is at -4 in net approval per CNN — across the past 70-plus years.
The president watches polls and he surely won’t appreciate that stat. But it does come with a bit of a bright side for Trump.
“Take a little different spin at the number,” CNN data guru Harry Enten said Tuesday. “All we talk about is how unpopular Donald Trump is, but in reality he is basically more popular than he was at any point in term number one and more popular than he was when he won the election back in 2024.”
Enten displayed a graphic that showed that Trump’s net approval rating in March 2017 was -10 points and that it was -7 points in November. So, he has made gains to get to -4 points in March.
“So, when you compare Trump to where he is against himself, he is actually closer to the apex than he is to the bottom of the trough,” Enten said. “And, of course, that is so important because Donald Trump, historically speaking, has had his numbers underestimated. So, I think it’s very important to compare him to himself to understand he is actually more popular now than he was when he won or certainly where he was back during his first term.
“The bottom line is, Trump is more towards the ceiling than he is towards the floor.”
Enten then explained that while Trump’s net approval rating is not good, he believes other metrics might tell how popular the president actually is. He then pulled up polling numbers from NBC and Marist on whether Americans believe the country is on the right track. The NBC poll showed 44% — the highest since 2004 — who believed the country was on the right track, while the Marist poll showed 45% — the highest since 2009 — who believed it was on the right track.
“It’s actually a very high percentage when you compare it to some historical numbers,” he said.
“The bottom line is the percentage of Americans who say we are on the right track is through the roof, and if you were to compare it to when presidents have historically been re-elected, of course Trump is not constitutionally eligible to run for re-election, but I think it puts it in perspective, 42% of the country says we are on the right track when the incumbent party is re-elected.
“And, also keep in mind, back when Kamala Harris lost and Democrats were thrown out of power, only about 27 of 28% said the country was on the right track,” Enten said. “The bottom line is, right now a much higher percentage of the country says we are on the right track.”
Enten then showed numbers that suggested that Republicans could be in position to do well at the ballot box because of it all.
“The bottom line is, yes Donald Trump’s approval rating is lower than a lot of his predecessors,” he said. “But it is higher than compared to himself. A lot of folks say the country is on the right track, and the generic congressional ballot looks a lot more like when Republicans win than when Democrats win.”
