Donald Trump’s honeymoon period is over — if it ever existed at all.
The president’s often disjointed efforts aimed at reorganizing the architecture of global trade coupled with furious (and growing) opposition to the rollout of his mass deportation strategy have left him in a tight spot. With the House and Senate still just around the halfway point in the months-long budget reconciliation process and yet to cast a final vote on a bill that may need his political capital to get over the finish line, Trump is bleeding support from voters on several fronts.
It’s a rough spot to be in, given the GOP’s ultra-slim majorities in the House and Senate and the continued likelihood that the Republican Party will have to reckon with a fight over Medicaid in the weeks ahead.
A slew of new approval polling this week finds the president underwater with voters in terms of his overall job performance and popularity of his efforts to address individual issues, including immigration — the area where he’s longest held an advantage over Democratic opponents.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll published Wednesday, nearly two thirds of Americans said uncontrolled migration was an issue of concern for them. Yet the share of respondents who approved of Trump’s actions was just 45 percent, lower than the 46 percent opposed to them. The rest were undecided. For context: the president enjoyed a double-digit advantage on this issue in Reuters polling taken over the final two weeks of the election.
His drop is largely thanks to the bizarre fight his administration continues to pick over Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran man whom the federal government deported despite a judge’s ruling that he could not return to El Salvador due to credible fears for his safety. Various administration officials have been unable to keep their explanations straight with each other or the Justice Department’s own court filings, while El Salvador’s president, eager for Trump’s approval, falsely accused Abrego Garcia of terrorist offenses. He’s never been charged with a crime.
The administration’s very public inability or refusal to acknowledge its own mistakes comes as media reports have detailed the consecutive failures of the Department of Homeland Security to adhere to Trump’s campaign promise to target violent criminals. The White House has publicly flouted a Supreme Court order requiring the US to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s retrieval.
A YouGov poll released Wednesday found that 50 percent of American adults believe that Abrego Garcia should be returned home, in line with a Supreme Court ruling ordering that the administration “facilitate” his retrieval. The share of Americans who took the White House’s position was just six percentage points higher than the share who had no opinion.
Meanwhile, a DDHQ/The Hill poll put out on Thursday indicates that Trump’s overall approval has dropped from above 50 percent in January to 44.7 percent today.
And in case after case, Trump officials have turned to bluster and disinformation rather than acknowledging errors or “handing it” to their critics.
Speaking of bluster: Trump’s trade agenda has caused his popularity to erode as well. On economic issues, the president is seeing the same drop in support even as a shaky stock market mounts a recovery. Economists are warning of a wave of capital flight and impending recession resulting from the on-again-off-again “reciprocal” tariff announcements, as well as the 10 percent duties the US slapped on all imports.
The incumbent president, who unveiled a “Trump ‘28” hat in his campaign merchandise store on Thursday, is legally barred from running for president himself again. Barring an extraordinary attempt to subvert the Constitution, he has no more campaigns to worry about winning.
But the same can’t be said for the Republicans he will need on his side to see his legislative agenda through Congress this year. It’s looking less and less likely that the administration will have the opportunity to see Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts codified into law.
If Trump’s polling trends continue, his second term may end up being an example of a presidency fueled by policy-through-executive-order, with the president having failed to achieve anything meaningful through Congress.
