Trump's Declining Approval Ratings: What's at Stake
The Trump Administration lacks a mandate and struggles with declining approval ratings. It's time to press the attack.
The Trump administration is officially closing in on its 100th day, and the public is seemingly souring on what Trump is selling. New polls indicate that President Trump's approval rating has declined substantially, with even Fox News' polling showing him struggling to gain support from the American public. While not indicative of an immediate failure, the polling suggests that Mr. Trump is far from popular and doesn't have a mandate.
What is a mandate?
When Trump was elected in 2024, much of the political rhetoric surrounding his election was bombastic, and Mr. Trump claimed that his election demonstrated that he had a political mandate.
In politics, a mandate is generally defined as the "authority that voters confer on an elected official to act as their representative." However, merely being elected isn't a sign of a mandate in and of itself. Rather, the degree to which a candidate has won an election is illustrative of strong public support for a candidate's agenda and, therefore, a mandate.
An example of an election without a mandate would be the 2016 election. Despite being elected in 2016, Mr. Trump did not win a majority of the popular vote, with then-candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton receiving 65.8 million votes to Mr. Trump's 62.9 million votes. By no metric did Mr. Trump have the overwhelming support necessary for his victory to be considered a mandate; however, he won enough of the Electoral College votes to be elected, taking 306 votes compared to Mrs. Clinton's 232. In other words, Mr. Trump was elected by procedure, not the popular will of the people.
Compare Mr. Trump's first electoral victory to Ronald Reagan's victory in the 1980 election, and the distinction becomes obvious. Where Mr. Trump was behind Mrs. Clinton by over 2 million votes, Mr. Reagan won the election handily, garnering over 43.9 million votes to then-President Carter's 35.4 million, and secured 489 electoral votes to Mr. Carter's 49. By the measures of the Electoral College and the popular vote, this was a knockout and sent a clear message that there was a mandate for Reagan's agenda.
Mr. Trump has never enjoyed such widespread support. Even when we examine the 2024 election, Mr. Trump doesn't cross the 50 percent threshold to claim majority support. While he won the popular vote compared to then-Vice President Kamala Harris, he didn't win above 50 percent. By the end of the election, Mr. Trump had secured an estimated 77.3 million votes, compared to then-Vice President Harris's 75 million. Percentage-wise, Mr Trump won 49.91 percent, and Ms. Harris got 48.43 percent. Neither candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote, excluding third-party candidates.
While Mr. Trump had improved his share, he still didn't gain over 50 percent, and that matters for two reasons:
Coming to the office with less than 50 percent support undercuts his claim of overwhelming support for his agenda.
Without said overwhelming support, any dip in his polling can harm his second term.
Mr. Trump's lack of a mandate is especially significant not only because it bruises his ego, which requires constant attention, but also because it suggests that if he suffers strong enough pushback from the public, it could prove disastrous, and that shift may be underway.
No Mandate and Faltering Support
While all presidents face various forms of pushback and changes in public opinion, most begin with high support and then decline over time. When Biden reached his 100th day in office, he had a 52 percent approval rating compared to a 42 percent disapproval rating. When he left office, Mr. Biden averaged an approval rating of 42.2 percent. By contrast, Mr. Trump averaged about 41.1 percent approval during his first term but enjoyed a period of relative glow going into his second term.
In January, Mr. Trump enjoyed an average approval rating of 52 percent, but by March, his approval began to decline, reaching a low of 37 percent by March 11th. By April, Mr. Trump's approval rating had sunk to an average of 46 percent, compared to 50 percent disapproval.
While viewing this within the context of flipping fortunes may be tempting, the Trump administration has never enjoyed an overwhelming wave of support. The second Trump administration came to power with the second-lowest approval rating of any president in modern history. His first term was even worse in polling. In other words, Donald Trump holds the record for the worst approval ratings of any president in modern history.
Polling by Pew Research also shows growing hostility to Mr. Trump's agenda, with 59 percent of Americans opposing his tariffs, 59 percent opposing his job performance, and 55 percent opposing his government cuts. Per Pew's data, Mr. Trump's approval rating is as low as 40 percent. It is worth noting that this data predates Mr. Trump's tariff announcements on April 2nd, meaning the situation could be even worse than Pew's reporting suggests.
On issues such as the judicial system's ability to check Mr. Trump's power, which has been the subject of intense legal struggle, an overwhelming 78 percent of Americans say that the administration must follow court orders, rising to 88 percent if the order comes from the Supreme Court. However, what is more concerning for Mr. Trump is the decline in faith in the economy.
As Pew explains:
"The public’s economic outlook has turned more negative. While current overall economic evaluations are unchanged from February, Americans are now more likely to say the economy will be worse a year from now (45% now, up from 37% then).
Confidence in Trump’s handling of the economy – long a relative strength – has declined. Today, 45% express confidence in Trump to make good decisions about the economy, his lowest rating on this measure in Pew Research Center surveys dating back to 2019. Still, Trump’s economic rating remains higher than Biden’s was throughout his presidency."
Mr. Trump relies heavily on the idea that he is the economic president, the one who keeps money in the hands of the American people. If Americans feel that they are in a worse-off position with the economy, then his support will likely continue to decline, and thus far, that is the case. Even Fox News, which has been a consistent advocate for Mr. Trump and his allies, acknowledges that his job performance approval has declined. Simply put, this administration is in trouble.
What does this mean?
While it is difficult to say definitively how far this decline will extend, it is reasonable to expect it to continue for now. Regardless of partisanship, presidents tend to lose support the longer they remain in office, and even popular ones experience shifts in their approval ratings. Mr. Trump, like his predecessors, will face the same reality.
What is different here is Mr. Trump himself. He has never been a particularly popular president, both during his first term and in his current one. He lacks the same general enthusiasm and respect that he needs from the American people. While it may be satisfying to use that as an attack on his ego, and it is deserved, the reality is that Democrats need to be ready to turn this shift in public opinion into a movement against the GOP and its allies. We can't afford to get overconfident here.
Come 2026, every error and bit of chaos that has occurred within the last 100 days should be burned into the brains of every American, so they send the GOP running out of the House and Senate, and come 2028, they hold the Trump administration's failures over the head of the Republican Party and keep them from the White House, preferably for all time.
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