Over the last decade, it’s often been said that President Trump’s support has a low ceiling but a high floor.
In this morning’s latest New York Times/Siena poll, whether Mr. Trump really has a high floor is starting to be put to the test.
Just 37 percent of Americans approve of his performance as president, a drop of four percentage points from the last Times/Siena poll in January and his lowest approval rating in any Times/Siena survey in either term.
A four-point decline isn’t necessarily huge, but it puts Mr. Trump’s ratings in new political territory. While recent presidencies have often been unpopular and polarizing, no president’s approval rating has been under 38 percent for more than a few days in the last 17 years, according to our average. If there has been a floor during this partisan era of politics, Mr. Trump’s ratings today have fallen to it.
While it’s too soon to say whether the war in Iran and high gas prices will ultimately break the floor in Mr. Trump’s support, the poll leaves no doubt that these issues could pull his approval ratings down even lower. Just 28 percent of voters approve of his handling of the cost of living, and only 31 percent approve of his handling of the war. Just 30 percent say he made the “right decision” in choosing to attack Iran.
The most immediate political consequence is that Democrats appear increasingly well positioned for the midterm elections in November. The poll shows Democrats have a double-digit lead, 50 percent to 39 percent, when registered voters are asked which party’s candidate they’ll support for Congress. That’s a notable shift from Times/Siena polls earlier this cycle — which showed Democrats up two to five points.
Anything like it would easily overcome the Republicans’ redistricting advantage in the House and suggest that Democrats could be highly competitive in the Senate. And although there’s still a long time until the election, Democrats held an even larger 14-point lead among those who said they were “almost certain” or “very likely” to vote.
As in other recent Times/Siena polls, the survey found that young and nonwhite voters have snapped back toward the left. Democrats have regained their usual, pre-Biden advantage among both groups in the race for control of Congress as well as in party identification. Mr. Trump’s approval rating among both groups is abysmal: Among voters 18 to 29 years old, only 19 percent approve of his performance; just 20 percent of Hispanic voters say the same.
The possibility that Mr. Trump’s floor is cracking raises the prospect of even more significant, longer-term political consequences. If the war and high prices persist, Mr. Trump’s troubles could start to look less like other recent polarizing presidencies and more like those of George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson or Harry Truman, in which quagmire abroad and economic challenges at home did significant political damage to their parties.
Of course, Iran is not doomed to be another Iraq, Vietnam or Korea. For now, there’s a cease-fire; there could be a diplomatic solution at any time. If prior wars are any indication, Mr. Trump has time to resolve these challenges before his approval ratings fall into the lower 30s or beyond.
The case of George W. Bush is instructive. At almost the exact same stage of Mr. Bush’s second term, the combination of the war in Iraq and high gas prices dragged his approval rating to about where Mr. Trump’s ratings are today. His ratings ultimately fell into the 20s, but it didn’t happen overnight. On average, Mr. Bush’s approval rating fell by less than one point per month for the rest of his term — which so happens to be the rate that Mr. Trump has been losing support over the last few months. For his approval rating to keep falling, Mr. Bush had to lose the support of longtime fans and Republicans. It can take a while.
If the conflict lasts long enough for Mr. Trump to keep bleeding support, Republicans might face something a lot worse than a bad midterm. A midterm defeat was likely even before the war began — it’s the usual fate of parties in power, after all — but the president’s party usually rebounds relative to that for the next presidential election. If Mr. Trump’s approval rating stays in the 30s, it won’t be so easy to assume Republicans will rebound. In the polling era, there are no examples of the president’s party retaining the White House when the president’s approval rating is under 40 percent. More often, the election is a rout.
You can read the full story on the poll results regarding Mr. Trump, Iran and the midterms here, and an explanation of some methodological changes to the Times/Siena poll here.
Nate Cohn is The Times’s chief political analyst. He covers elections, public opinion, demographics and polling.
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