Trump’s Approval Rating Hits 35%: What the Deepest Slide of His Second Term Actually Tells Us

On May 19, 2026, Forbes published a consolidated national poll putting Trump’s approval rating at 35% — the lowest point of his second term, and among the steepest, fastest declines of his political career. The Guardian called it “the lowest approval rating of his second term.” RBC Ukraine described it as “a concentration of Republican disappointment finally breaking through into the data.”

This isn’t an outlier. Polls from BBC, Newsweek, HuffPost, and the AP-NORC center have converged on the same picture: Trump is losing voters he could least afford to lose.

The Numbers: From 47% to 35% in Under Four Months

The trajectory is stark. Trump’s second-term approval rating began around 47% — already weak by historical standards for a new administration. From there, every major policy moment drove another drop:

• March: Whiplash on student loan policy, mass protests over federal spending cuts — polling slipped to the low 40s
• April: AP-NORC showed a sharp deterioration in economic confidence. The Associated Press was direct: “the Iran war is driving up prices, and ordinary families are paying the bill.” Gallup’s tracking confirmed independents had swung net-negative on Trump for the first time since 2017
• May: The 35% figure from Forbes’ consolidated poll, with the headline explicitly noting “support among Republicans plummets”

Gallup’s longitudinal data adds context: the collapse isn’t just about one demographic. Multiple groups are moving in the same direction simultaneously.

Who’s Leaving?

Independents are the primary engine of this decline. Gallup’s targeted analysis shows independent voters began a structural shift against Trump in early 2026 — not passive drift, but active movement toward opposition. This matters because independents disproportionately decide competitive races.

Republicans themselves are fracturing. Forbes’ May 19 report explicitly used the phrase “Republican support plummets” — language that would have been unthinkable in the party a year ago. Moderate Republicans have moved from private grumbling to public criticism. Several elected officials who once warmly endorsed Trump are now conspicuously avoiding his name in campaign appearances.

Religious conservatives have also shown statistically significant softening. PRRI’s March survey tracked favorability among evangelicals and other traditionally pro-Trump religious groups and found measurable drops — not defections, but a notable cooling of enthusiasm.

The Causes: Economic Anxiety, Foreign Policy Overreach

The economy is primary. USA Today and multiple polling partners found a consistent pattern: by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans say Trump’s policies have done more to raise prices than to lower them. Tariff wars, supply chain disruptions, and policy unpredictability have damaged the inflation expectations that matter most to household finances.

The Iran conflict is a new and amplifying variable. PBS reported in late April that the military escalation in Iran directly pushed energy prices higher — and energy prices are the most visible, visceral component of inflation for everyday Americans. The White House’s handling of this crisis has lacked a coherent public narrative, meaning the foreign policy consequences land almost entirely on the domestic economic ledger.

Governance style is eroding the rest. HuffPost cited multiple political observers making a point that goes beyond the usual Trump critique: his unpredictability, once framed as a negotiating asset, is increasingly experienced by voters — allies, adversaries, and ordinary Americans alike — as exhaustion. The inability to predict his behavior was once interesting. Now it’s just tiring.

What 35% Actually Means

In historical terms, 35% isn’t the worst we’ve seen. Nixon bottomed at 24% in 1974. Bush’s end-of-term rating in 2008 sat around 25%. What makes Trump’s number significant is the speed and the composition of the decline.

He still holds roughly 80-85% of Republicans — a level of intra-party loyalty almost without parallel in modern American politics. But that base, alone, is no longer large enough to sustain an overall polling number above the mid-30s when independents and moderate Republicans are hemorrhaging simultaneously.

More importantly: approval ratings are leading indicators of electoral outcomes. A sustained 35% rating heading into the 2026 midterms would put Republicans in serious jeopardy across competitive House and Senate seats — particularly in the swing districts they flipped by narrow margins in 2022.

What Comes Next

Presidents who sink to low approval ratings typically have three escape routes: a major legislative win, an external crisis that produces a rally-around-the-flag effect, or functional cooperation with congressional allies. None of these paths looks clear right now. Legislative achievements have been thin. The Iran situation has yet to generate anything resembling a unity narrative. And the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill has shown consistent, repeated fractures over the past two years.

The 35% number, by itself, changes nothing. But the structural losses it reflects are quietly recalculating the political math in Washington.

Sources: Forbes (May 19, 2026), The Guardian (May 18, 2026), PBS/AP-NORC (April 2026), PRRI (March 2026), Gallup 2026 tracking data, YouGov national polling aggregates

Image Credit: Aerial view of the White House complex, Unsplash