On the campaign trail in late summer of 2024, Donald Trump stood at his Bedminster, N.J., club flanked by tables of everyday goods and small placards describing how much those items had risen in price during Joe Biden’s presidency. Correctly assessing that this issue would be consequential in the race for the White House, Mr. Trump’s campaign had smartly positioned him to highlight it. And it rang true with voters who weren’t buying into the overly rosy messaging about the economy that was coming from the Biden administration.
Now it is Mr. Trump who is claiming that voters should not believe their own wallets, calling the issue of affordability a “con job” by Democrats. The same trap that caught Mr. Biden (and subsequently his vice president, Kamala Harris) has now ensnared the president, and he has the job approval figures to match. Those numbers have fallen steadily this year and last month fell under 40 percent across multiple polls, rivaling the low-water mark of Mr. Trump’s first term, as well as those of Mr. Biden.
What’s crucial to understand about Mr. Trump’s poor approval numbers is that unlike during his last time in the White House, people now disapprove of him because of the economy, not in spite of it. During his first term, concerns about him centered more on his style and approach, and his approval was lowest on issues like response to Covid-19. However, his job approval on the economy was typically a bright spot in his polling, and in my view, it was that brand attribute — a belief that, for all the baggage, Mr. Trump might be worth having as president again if he could just fix the economy — that ushered him back to power.
Mr. Trump got a small bump recently as he paid more attention to the economy, at least in one poll; his approval figure rose from 38 percent to 41 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos survey out this week. But his overall rating remains low when it comes to the cost of living, at 31 percent. He is now traveling the country on an affordability messaging tour and can’t help but revert to his insistence on his success, against the evidence. In an interview with Politico this week, he described the current economy as “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”
It’s ominous territory, but how ominous?
For one thing, we should view it in the context of the current political climate. Job approval has typically been a strong signal of the country’s political mood, with poor approval numbers often resulting in bad election outcomes. But lower job approval numbers are arguably simply the norm these days. Presidents do not get much of a honeymoon in their first year anymore; it is no longer commonplace for a president to begin with job approval around 70 percent and end their term 30 or 40 points lower, as Jimmy Carter did.
Job approval percentages today instead tend to remain in a narrow band, with partisans largely dug in and unwilling to move. Voters seem less eager to give a thumbs-up to a president for whom they did not vote, almost regardless of circumstance. As a result, while presidents in the 20th century often saw job approval percentages of 60 or higher, presidents of the past two decades have mostly seen their figures hover in the 40s.
Because of this trend, job approval of 42 percent may not seem like a five-alarm fire to Mr. Trump. He was told before that he was unpopular or that he had driven away swing voters, and two out of three times, he pulled off electoral victories. While his job approval fell a bit after the announcement of tariffs in March, its decline since then has been more modest and gradual. Job approval is also a catchall metric, covering the public’s assessment of a president’s style and substance. It can turn around if the economy improves.
Yet affordability has slipped away from Mr. Trump as an issue of strength. Recent polling shows voters assessing his impact on the economy in much the same way they ultimately rated Mr. Biden, with only 15 percent of respondents saying in a Fox News poll last month that they thought Mr. Trump’s economic policies had helped them personally. His advisers reportedly understand that the political danger is real and are urging him to shift course.
The holiday shopping season is upon us and, with it, the potential for even greater political peril. When Mr. Trump was rolling out his tariffs, he admitted that they might make things more expensive. He should thank his lucky stars that his political opponents haven’t yet blanketed the airwaves with the clip of him saying, “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.” Inexplicably, he doubled down on this terrible message at a rally on Tuesday night, seemingly determined to hand Democrats a gift.
In the next two weeks, Americans who are holiday shopping will be looking closely at what they can afford to spend beyond the essentials, and they will hold their leaders accountable if that assessment is not a good one.
If Mr. Trump is to win back the issue of affordability and boost his job approval rating, he must carefully thread the needle his predecessor was unable to. He must acknowledge Americans’ pain (rather than dismiss it as a “con job”) while pointing to the policies he is most proud of that tackle the issue head-on: increased energy production to lower gas prices, lower taxes on many families. He appears to be learning that lesson, boasting about low gas prices in a Truth Social post on Saturday, though he exaggerated the level of decline.
He should also strongly consider rolling back tariffs in the areas where Americans report hurting the most, like food. He should draw a contrast with Democrats whose affordability message centers on government subsidies, rather than pursue such a strategy himself.
Voters are craving economic relief, and they fear this White House has only exacerbated the problems it inherited from the Biden administration. If Mr. Trump is to turn things around before next year’s midterm elections, he will need focused messaging, along with concrete results Americans can feel in their pocketbooks. Eggs may be cheaper today than one year ago, but many things people pay for are not, and the job approval numbers for Mr. Trump reflect that pain.
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