US Politics
Trump’s approval rating hits an all time low in second term as nearly two-thirds disapprove of president
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Donald Trump’s approval rating fell to its lowest point on record for his second term in a new NBC News poll published on Sunday.
The president’s performance as commander-in-chief now has the support of just 37 percent of Americans, while nearly two thirds (63 percent) said they disapprove of his handling of world affairs. Half of all American adults now say they “strongly” disapprove of how the Trump presidency is going.
Trump’s support is slowly begining to collapse among Republicans, who’ve been in near lockstep with him since he first took office in 2017 and only temporarily straying from his side in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 attack on Congress. According to NBC’s polling, the share of Republicans who say they “strongly” support the president’s job performance dropped six percentage points between late January and mid-April, now reaching just 52 percent.
83 percent of Republicans said they either strongly approved or somewhat approved of Trump’s record in office so far. That’s a drop of four percentage points from the previous NBC poll in late January/early February, and comes as Gallup opinion surveys throughout 2025 did not show Trump with an approval rating among Republicans lower than 89 percent. Gallup’s polling showed the president with the support of 93 percent of Republicans as recently as September.
On economic issues, Trump is also seeing his worst numbers yet. Just 13 percent of Americans strongly approve of his record as it relates to fighting inflation, while another 16 percent somewhat approve. A wide majority of Americans say the president isn’t doing enough to fight inflation and solve cost of living issues, 68 percent, and 52 percent “strongly” disapprove of the administration’s failed progress on this issue, the first time that number has topped 50 percent in an NBC poll. With under 30 percent of Americans buying the administration’s line on affordability being a non-issue or a “Democratic hoax”, it’s clear that even Republicans want to see the administration take further action to improve economic conditions for struggling Americans.
In a particularly bad sign for Republicans facing down midterm contests this year, 40 percent of Americans said that they were financially worse off than they were one year ago. Less than half that number (19 percent) said the opposite, the lowest number Trump has scored on that data point since taking office.
Those numbers come as gas prices have surged to their highest point in years, jumping more than $1 per gallon since the beginning of the war with Iran in late February.
The Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz has proved a vexing problem that Trump has been yet unable to solve, and the prohibition of oil tanker traffic through the key waterway has caused a massive strain on supply. Amid a two-week ceasefire and peace talks in Pakistan, Trump declared that the strait was “fully open” on Friday, only to see that dynamic change less than 48 hours later.
Nearly two-thirds of American adults, 65 percent, said in NBC’s poll that rising gas prices were posing at least somewhat of a problem for their financial outlooks this year.
Early Sunday a tanker reporter being fired upon by anIRGC vessel in the strait, and Trump returned to an old strategy in response. Writing on Truth Social, he re-issued a threat to target Iranian civil infrastructure including bridges and power plants if Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) forces do not allow the safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote.
Those threats have largely failed to incur a response from Iran, which has instead only allowed ships to pass through the strait in shows of supposed good faith to U.S. negotiators during talks. The ceasefire struck by U.S. negotiators earlier this month is due to end on Tuesday. Administration officials said Sunday that a U.S. team headed up by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner was headed to Pakistan for the talks; Vice President JD Vance is no longer at the helm after leading a previous round of talks that failed to result in a deal.
The NBC poll was conducted by SurveyMonkey between March 30-April 13, with responses from 32,433 American adults. The margin of error is 1.8 percentage points.