TRUMP’S REMARKABLE POLLING STABILITY. A new poll from the New York Times finds that President Donald Trump has a job approval rating of 43% and a disapproval rating of 54%. That was virtually identical to Trump’s 42% approval and 54% disapproval in the last Times poll, taken in late April.
A lot has happened in the last five months. And yet Trump’s approval/disapproval is unchanged. And not just in the Times poll. A look at the RealClearPolitics average of polls shows that Trump’s job approval has for months bounced around in a very narrow, four-point range, between 44% and 48%. It does not seem to matter what Trump does or what he does not do, or what Democrats do, or what the anti-Trump media says about him, or whatever — Trump rolls on with the same level of public approval and disapproval.
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That level of approval is higher this time around than during Trump’s first term. The RCP average for Trump’s approval on Oct. 4, 2017, was 39.2% approve, 55% disapprove. The RCP average today is 44.9% approval and 53% disapprove. Trump’s approval today is more than five points higher than it was at this point in his first term.
Where are Trump’s strengths today? First, among men — he is at 50% approval with them. Among white Americans — he is at 52% approval. Among whites who do not have a college degree — 62%. In the South — 52%. Among Republicans — 90%. And among the people who voted for him last November — 93%. All those numbers are registered voters in the Times poll.
But what about the undeniable fact that, overall, Trump is underwater? That is just a feature of Trump’s presidency. He was never above 50% approval in the RCP average at any point in his first term. In this term, he was above the 50% line from Jan. 20, 2025, to Jan. 30, 2025 — the first ten days of his presidency. After that, it’s all been underwater.
Analysts talk about a politician’s “ceiling” and “floor,” meaning their highest and lowest levels of support. Trump famously has a low ceiling and a high floor. It would be better for him if he had a higher ceiling, that is, the possibility of his approval rating rising well above 50%. But for his political survival, it’s probably more important that Trump have a high floor, that is, a minimum approval rating that is significant enough to protect his power and influence.
During his entire first term, according to the RCP average, Trump’s approval rating never fell below 37% or rose above 47% — a 10-point range. This term so far, it has moved between 44% and 50%, and, as mentioned above, has mostly stayed in a narrow range between 44 and 48. (Presidents have different patterns of such things. In his first term, President Barack Obama’s job approval rating ranged from 64% to 42% — a 22-point range.)
For Trump, it appears the high floor reflects the fact that he has consolidated Republican base support even more than he did in his first term. That’s useful in a lot of obvious ways. Take the ongoing government shutdown. Has Trump seemed even the least bit nervous about it? It certainly doesn’t appear so. Part of the reason for that is his strong base of support.
And here is one last useful feature of a high floor. It’s entirely possible Republicans will lose control of the House in next year’s midterm elections. If so, it seems more than likely that Democrats, newly in power, will impeach Trump. The nation will be off to the Trump impeachment races again. But Trump’s strength — his bulwark against removal from office — will be his super-solid base of support. The high floor will ensure he always has a significant level of support to call on, no matter what Democrats do.