As President Donald Trump approaches his 400th day back in the White House next week, one Republican pollster is issuing a bleak assessment of his performance so far — one he argued had been “pretty chaotic” and runs a real risk of handing Democrats a decisive victory in the upcoming midterm elections.
“There’s a sense that this is a pretty chaotic administration,” said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster and political consultant with 40 years of experience, speaking with Politico Monday.
“And it seems to remind people of the pandemic period in the first term. Joe Biden’s fundamental message in 2020 was to restore normalcy, and that seemed to be persuasive to enough people to get him elected.”
Indeed, many have described Trump’s second stint in the White House as “chaotic,” with its unpredictability only increasing in recent months.
For instance, the Trump administration has increasingly pivoted from its previous positions. Trump has backtracked on his bid to acquire Greenland, the administration announced plans to end its immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, and Trump’s recent threat towards Canada over a bridge came and went with no follow-through.
That chaos, Ayres argued, had largely been responsible for bringing Trump’s approval ratings to “his lowest point in the second term.” As of Friday, a new AP-NORC poll found that Trump’s approval rating sits at 36%, a figure that Ayres warned could spell doom for the Republican Party this fall.
“Historically, when [a president is polling] above 50%, the party loses seats but not that many,” Ayres told Politico. “When the president’s job approval is below, the average loss of seats is 32.”
Trump’s performance among key voter blocs has also plummeted. According to a new YouGov/Economist poll, the president’s approval among voters aged 18 to 29 fell by a staggering 51 points since he took office last year. He’s also lost substantial ground with other key voter blocs, including non-college-educated voters and independents.
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