President Donald Trump is confronting the steepest slide in public support of his second term, with multiple national surveys now converging on the same conclusion: his standing with voters has eroded sharply in just a few weeks. The latest numbers show his approval sinking into the high 30s and even the mid 30s in some polls, while disapproval climbs to 60 percent or higher, a combination that would alarm any White House heading into another election cycle.
The downturn is not confined to one polling firm or one bad sample, but instead reflects a broad-based shift across several major pollsters and aggregators that track Trump’s job performance. From Gallup-style measures of overall approval to issue-specific trackers on the economy and prices, the data points to a president whose coalition is fraying at the edges and whose margin for political error has narrowed dramatically.
The new low: how far Trump’s approval has fallen
The most striking development is how quickly Trump’s numbers have broken through previous floors to set new second-term lows. One national poll cited in recent coverage put his approval at 36 percent, with disapproval at 60 percent, a gap that underscores just how many Americans now say they are unhappy with his performance. Those figures, reported in a Gallup-style poll, capture the scale of the slide more vividly than any single anecdote from the campaign trail.
Other surveys have landed in a similar range, reinforcing the sense that this is not a statistical blip. A separate national poll conducted by Reuters and Ipsos earlier in Nov reported Trump’s approval at 38%, a level he himself has publicly acknowledged as “down.” When multiple independent measures cluster around 36 percent and 38%, it suggests a durable shift in public mood rather than a one-off reaction to a single news cycle.
Gallup-style measures and the second-term context
Viewed through the lens of long-running trend lines, the current numbers mark a clear break from Trump’s earlier second-term performance. Coverage of Gallup’s latest reading notes that President Trump’s approval has dropped to its lowest point since he took office the second time, with the decline described in a segment known as The Brief. That framing matters because Gallup-style measures are often used as a benchmark for how presidents compare across decades, and Trump is now brushing up against the weakest stretches of his first term as well.
Another report on Nov 29, 2025, highlighted that Trump’s approval rating has hit a new second-term low as Republican support dips, underscoring that the erosion is not limited to independents or Democrats. The same coverage stressed that President Donald Trump continues to see his numbers fall, with the decline in some cases measured at several points in a single month, a pattern that aligns with the 5-point drop described in a separate Gallup-style analysis of his job performance.
Aggregators confirm a broad downturn
Individual polls can swing, but the polling averages that smooth out those bumps are now telling the same story. One prominent aggregator that tracks opinion polling on the second Trump presidency lists an Approval table showing how far Trump’s support now lags behind his opposition. In that breakdown, the columns labeled Aggregator, Updated, Approve, Disapprove and Unsure capture a consistent pattern: disapproval outpaces approval by double digits, and only a small share of respondents fall into the Unsure category, which means there is limited room for easy gains.
Real-time tracking sites that specialize in political numbers are picking up the same trend. One widely cited dashboard on President Trump Job Approval currently shows Approve at 42.7% and Disapprove at 55.1%, with a Disapprove lead of 12.4 points, figures that are displayed as 55.1 % and 42.7 % in the site’s charting tools. Those topline numbers, which can be explored in more detail through 7D, 14D, 30D and MAX views with a RESET option, reinforce how Trump’s standing has deteriorated across multiple surveys, not just in a single outlier snapshot.
The shutdown hangover and a 5-point slide
Part of the story behind the downturn lies in the political fallout from the historic government shutdown that recently ended. Reporting on one national survey conducted after the reopening of federal agencies noted that Donald Trump’s Approval Rating Slips 5% To New Second Term Low After End Of Historic Government Shutdown, language that captures both the magnitude of the drop and its timing. The same account linked the slide to public frustration over the suspension of federal food assistance and other visible consequences of the standoff, which left many Americans feeling that Washington had played politics with their livelihoods.
That 5-point decline is especially significant because it came on top of already soft numbers, pushing Trump into territory that advisers had hoped to avoid. When a president’s approval falls by that margin in a short window, it often reflects more than just partisan anger, and the shutdown appears to have crystallized doubts among swing voters about Trump’s approach to governing. The fact that this shift was captured in a high-profile survey of the shutdown’s aftermath suggests that the episode has left a lasting mark on his political brand.
Trump’s own spin on the bad numbers
Trump has not ignored the slide, but he has tried to reframe it on his own terms. In remarks earlier in Nov, he acknowledged that his approval ratings are down, while insisting that the decline does not apply to what he called “smart people.” Coverage of those comments noted that They, meaning his supporters, were described as “unbelievable patriots” who simply needed to be taught to see the stakes as he does, a line that underscored his belief that messaging, rather than policy, is the core problem. That framing was captured in detail in a report on how Trump talks about his slipping numbers.
At the same time, Trump has pointed to specific polls to argue that the situation is not as dire as critics suggest. On Nov 20, 2025, he was responding directly to a Reuters and Ipsos poll that pegged his approval at 38%, a figure he dismissed as unrepresentative of “smart people” even as he conceded it was lower than he would like. That same 38% number appeared in another survey highlighted on Nov 21, 2025, which reported that Trump had a 38% approval rating and described it as a new record low since he took office in January, based on a survey conducted between November 14 and November 17, details that were laid out in a survey summary by a famed polling expert.
Issue-by-issue cracks: economy, prices and policy
Underneath the topline approval numbers, Trump’s standing on specific issues has also softened, particularly on the economy and the cost of living. A recent analysis of public opinion found that more Americans now say Trump has raised prices, with Consumer prices reported as having increased in September 3% from a year earlier, slightly up from 2.9% in August, according to the Labor Department. That backdrop has made it harder for the White House to sell its economic message, especially when voters are reminded that inflation had previously fallen from a peak of 9.1% to a low of 3% and that confidence readings, such as an index of 50 in June 2022, once looked more favorable, details that were laid out in a report on Consumer prices and Labor data.
Even on issues where Trump once enjoyed relative strength, the picture is more mixed. A tracker focused on Trump’s Washington reported that Perceptions of Trump on trade have improved as Trump dials back tariffs on some key food imports, and that his performance ratings on immigration and the economy remain competitive, with one measure listing support at 50% on the economy. Those “Key Takeaways” suggest that while his overall approval is sliding, there are pockets of resilience that could help him stabilize if broader conditions improve, a nuance captured in the Perceptions of Trump tracker that follows his performance on trade, immigration and other issues.
Republican erosion and expert warnings
One of the most politically dangerous aspects of the current slide is the reported softening among Republicans themselves. Coverage of the latest Gallup-style readings on Nov 29, 2025, emphasized that Trump’s approval rating has hit a second-term low as Republican support dips, a warning sign for any incumbent who relies on strong partisan loyalty to weather storms. The same reporting noted that President Donald Trump continues to see his numbers fall even among voters who backed him in both previous campaigns, a trend that could complicate turnout efforts if it persists into the next election cycle, as highlighted in the Nov 29, 2025 analysis.
Political scientists and poll-watchers have started to frame the downturn as part of a broader pattern rather than a one-off shock. Experts quoted in a Nov 30, 2025, report argued that it is not unusual for presidents to grapple with lower approval ratings once taking office, but they also stressed that President Trump’s approval ratings have fallen more sharply than some predecessors at a comparable point. Those Experts pointed to a combination of policy controversies and communication missteps, and they warned that if Trump cannot reverse the perception that his policies have worsened conditions for key groups, the current slump could harden into a new normal, a concern laid out in detail in a piece on how Tru is faring with public opinion.
What the averages say about Trump’s coalition
Looking across the full range of data, the averages suggest that Trump’s coalition is both narrower and more brittle than it was at the start of his second term. The RealClear-style aggregator that tracks President Trump Job Approval, with its Approve 42.7% and Disapprove 55.1% readings and a Disapprove lead of 12.4 points, indicates that even when the most favorable polls are blended with the harshest, he is still underwater by a significant margin. The ability to toggle between 7D, 14D, 30D and MAX views with a RESET function shows that this is not a sudden collapse but the culmination of a gradual erosion that has accelerated in recent weeks, as reflected in the Approve and Disapprove charts.
At the same time, the 36 percent and 60 percent figures from the Gallup-style poll, combined with the 38% readings from the Reuters and Ipsos poll and the November 14 to November 17 survey, paint a picture of a president whose support is concentrated in a shrinking base rather than spread across a broad cross-section of the electorate. When only roughly a third of voters say they approve and roughly three in five say they disapprove, it becomes harder to argue that the downturn is simply a matter of bad press or temporary frustration. Instead, the numbers suggest a structural challenge that will require more than a messaging reset to fix, a reality underscored by the MAX trend lines that show how far Trump has fallen from his early second-term highs.
Why this nosedive matters heading into the next phase
The political stakes of Trump’s approval nosedive are hard to overstate. Presidents with approval ratings in the mid 30s and high 30s typically struggle to push major legislation through Congress, to rally allies abroad and to persuade skeptical voters at home that they deserve another term. For Trump, whose governing style has always depended on projecting strength and inevitability, the perception that his support is slipping could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if donors, activists and elected Republicans start to hedge their bets based on the same approval data that is now flashing red.
At the same time, history suggests that approval ratings are not destiny. Economic conditions can improve, policy wins can change the conversation and unexpected events can rally the country around a sitting president. Trump still has pockets of resilience on issues like trade and the economy, as the 50% rating on economic handling in the issue tracker shows, and he retains a fiercely loyal core that responds to his message even when broader audiences tune out. The question now is whether that core can be expanded again or whether the current 36 percent, 38%, 42.7% and 55.1% constellation of numbers will define the rest of his second term, locking in a political environment where disapproval, not approval, is the defining feature of his presidency.
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Grant Mercer covers market dynamics, business trends, and the economic forces driving growth across industries. His analysis connects macro movements with real-world implications for investors, entrepreneurs, and professionals. Through his work at The Daily Overview, Grant helps readers understand how markets function and where opportunities may emerge.
