Trump is substantially less popular than when he came to office just over a year ago. And what’s more, he knows it.
The US president’s favourability ratings have cratered in the last year, and it is the vote-winning issues that are starting to drag him down in the polls.
His popularity peaked on Jan 21 2025, the day after his inauguration, then tipped in net disapproval by mid-March and remained underwater thereafter.
All presidents see their supporter base naturally eroded over the term. Mr Trump’s position is in no way disastrous.
Nevertheless, Mr Trump made promises on the campaign trail in 2024 that did not see even fleeting contact with reality, and he has made missteps on important policy issues.
James Johnson, the co-founder of pollster JLP Partners, believes the tipping point for the president came in November, when the anniversary of the election crystallised the issue for voters. Campaign hyperbole didn’t live up to the hype.
Mr Trump’s net favorability rating hit -15 per cent in mid-November: its lowest number to date, although it has been careening in that direction since the start of this year.
Many, including Mr Johnson, believe Mr Trump’s fundamental appeal came from the perception of his strength.
But that image has been undercut by dozens of flip-flops on issues like tariffs. And strength is a double-edged sword when it leads to things like the unpopular, heavy-handed immigration enforcement in cities like Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
Mr Trump, a former reality TV star, is more attuned to the currents of public opinion than many in his administration, and has shifted his position several times in an attempt to blunt his tumbling poll ratings.
Amid spiking concerns about inflation, he delivered an address from the Oval Office in a primetime address in December, stumbling over his words in an uncharacteristically wooden speech.
He has also softened his mass deportation programme, undercutting the hardliners pushing for aggressive tactics and withdrawing agents from Minneapolis.
Mr Trump is secure in the White House for the next three years, and is sitting on an election victory, returning to power with all seven swing states.
The 2025 mid-terms will be an important referendum on his presidency, and if the Republicans lose control of Congress, it will dramatically check his ability to enact his agenda.
Below, we take a look at the issues causing Mr Trump’s popularity slump, many of which were key areas of his 2024 campaign, and why they are slowly eroding his once-enviable voter base.
The Jeffrey Epstein question
While issues like the economy and immigration are consistently tracked by pollsters, some believe it is the more specific issues, like the Epstein files, that have been more damaging for Mr Trump’s popularity.
Christopher Galdieri, a politics professor at Saint Anselm College, believes that the perception of Mr Trump as a strong president was fatally undercut when he was forced into an embarrassing volte face over the files in December.
First, Mr Trump tried to block the publication of the documents, aligning himself with the elites despised by his own Maga base, Prof Galdieri said.
But in the face of a Republican rebellion, led by former allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and with Congress poised to force the release of all documents, Mr Trump changed his stance.
He eventually signed legislation demanding their release. Mr Trump’s concession showed him up as a “lame duck”, Prof Galdieri claimed.
In the three million documents released by the US justice department in January, Mr Trump and topics related to him are mentioned more than 38,000 times.
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