The past few months have not been ideal for Donald Trump. His approval rating has shot to its lowest levels so far, and it continues to decline as the Iran War drags on. Silver Bulletin’s approval tracker has him at -19.6% net approval, a hair above his record low.
And all this with the midterms elections just over two months away, in which the Republicans must retain both chambers if they want to continue to push their agenda. Democrats have a 84% chance of winning the House on Kalshi, and the Senate race is practically dead even.
Trump’s base is also cooling. A Strength in Numbers poll recorded his lowest approval ever, but also noted that his base’s approval is weaker than it was last year. Among those who approve of Donald Trump, just 47% strongly approve of him, down from 54% last year.
And the generic ballot continues to favor Democrats. Silver Bulletin’s generic ballot tracker has Democrats at a record +6.7%. Clearly, Trump and the Republican party are struggling coming into the midterms.
The most worrying statistic out of all of this is the cooling of Trump’s base. For a decade, Trump has had an unflinching grip on a key group of supporters, who have stuck with him through thick and thin. These are people who were the subject of Trump’s controversial comment in 2016, where he said: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters”.
But as James Carville famously said on the Clinton campaign trail: “it’s the economy, stupid”. The economy may be the death of Trump’s cult of personality. His economic approval remained steady throughout his first term, which for the most part saw a rising stock market and improving economic conditions for Americans, in some part due to the success of the Obama administration.
But now, Trump’s economic approval has nosedived. Gas prices spiked during the Iran War, and Americans, especially working class Americans, have not seen any money from the stock market’s rally. Average Americans are struggling economically, all while they watch their president shrug off affordability issues.
Donald Trump and the Republicans need to focus on economic messaging if they want to win over voters. Democrats have, for the first time since the early 2010s, surpassed Republicans in economic approval. If these trends continue, Democrats will sweep the midterms.