The line going around: Trump is heading into the midterms with the worst approval of any president in 80 years.
The record: second worst since 1946. Harry Truman went into his midterm lower, and the Wall Street Journal’s own comparison only reaches back to 1990.
CNN’s poll, fielded October 15 to 18, has Donald Trump at 32 percent approval, one point under its own previous low and seven under where he stood before the 2018 midterms. The claim that he is worse off than any president in 80 years is close, and the gap between close and true is where the story sits.
Three Polls in Eight Days
CNN and SSRS found 32 percent of adults approve of the job he is doing. They talked to 1,701 adults, 1,206 of them registered voters, with a margin of error of 2.9 points.
Among Republicans, approval fell to 74 percent. In February 2025 it was 88.
The New York Times and Siena put approval at 36 percent among likely voters, with 59 percent disapproving. That is the worst result they have recorded for him, from 3,494 voters surveyed October 12 to 19.
The Wall Street Journal’s September poll had 37 percent approving and 61 percent disapproving, the lowest for any president heading into a midterm in its surveys. Those surveys start in 1990.
| Poll | Fielded | Approve | Points from Truman’s 33 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CNN / SSRS (adults) | Oct 15-18 | 32% | 1 below |
| NYT / Siena (likely voters) | Oct 12-19 | 36% | 3 above |
| WSJ (registered voters) | Sep 16-21 | 37% | 4 above |
Who Is Actually Below Him
The Silver Bulletin average hit a new low of minus 24.3 on October 22. It also carries the finding that settles the argument: by the New York Times’ count, Trump’s approval heading into the midterms is the second lowest since 1946, and only Truman’s was lower.
CNN’s Harry Enten went further and called it the worst ever for a president going into midterms. That framing leans on individual October polls rather than on an average.
Both can be true at once. A single survey can undercut Truman while the average does not.
The Arithmetic Against Truman
Gallup’s table has Truman at 33 percent in September 1946. CNN’s 32 is a point lower. The Times and Siena figure sits three above him, and the Journal’s sits four above.
So one pollster out of three has Trump under the Truman line. Call that a tie, with a footnote.
The footnote is large. Gallup in 1946 was a different instrument, polling a country without the same partisan sorting, and a one-point gap across eight decades proves nothing. The honest reading is that Trump is in Truman’s neighborhood, and no president since has lived there.
Why Truman Is Cold Comfort
Truman’s neighborhood has a bad reputation. In 1946 Republicans took both chambers of Congress, and Truman’s Democrats had held both going in.
Trump’s party controls both chambers now. Same seat, same train.
Nothing here predicts a wave. Approval is not a vote, and nobody can say how the 36 percent who approve will distribute across districts. It does say what the fight looks like from the incumbent side, which is a fight to hold what they have.
The Base Is Where It Cracked
The national number gets the attention. The more useful figure is the 74.
A president can lose independents and survive. He cannot shed 14 points of approval inside his own party, the distance from 88 to 74, and call it a rough patch. And the Times and Siena has Republicans at 82 percent, which is hardly a fortress either.
The Journal found that 11 percent of people who voted for him in 2024 now regret it. It also found 60 percent saying his economic policies made the economy worse, against 25 percent who say better.
Those are the numbers of a coalition being asked to defend a record it no longer likes. We covered the slide in his numbers the day before CNN’s poll landed, and the direction has not changed.
What We Think
The “worst in 80 years” line is sloppy, and we would rather correct it than repeat it. The accurate version is not much better for him.
Second worst since the end of the Second World War, behind a man who lost Congress, is a position the White House should read as a warning. Instead it keeps behaving as if approval is something that happens to other presidents.
We think the polling says what the people who answered it say: they do not like how this is going, they say it is costing them, and a growing share of his own voters agrees. A president who responds to that by arguing with the pollsters is making Truman’s mistake with better graphics.
What to Watch Before November 3
Watch the Republican number. If it holds near 82 in the next round of Times and Siena and CNN polling, the damage stays national and mostly rhetorical. If it keeps sliding toward the 70s, the argument moves from the cable panels to the individual districts, where it counts.
Truman’s Gallup number barely moved after September, to 34 percent in November. Trump has twelve days to do better than that, and no sign of how.