Trump’s Honeymoon Is Over. These Are the Voters Deserting Him

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen deeper underwater as he’s lost his post-election shine with a range of groups — most notably, younger Americans who were key to his electoral success last November.

According to our latest surveys, Trump’s disapproval rating now sits at 51%, a new record-high for this term alongside a record-low 47% approval rating. The 4-point gap between those figures is similar to where he stood at roughly the same point in his first term, when 46% of voters approved and 50% disapproved of his job performance.

Trump’s decline came from across a range of voter groups. The driving force of this may be white voters given their size in the American population, but in a perhaps clearer warning sign for the broader Republican Party, it’s also occurring among nonwhite voters, who played an outsize role in Trump’s popular-vote victory.

Since our first post-inauguration survey in January, Trump’s net approval rating has fallen 27 percentage points among Black voters, who are now 47 points more likely to disapprove than approve of how he’s doing his job, 72% to 24%.

Trump’s latest standing with Black voters is slightly better than it was at a similar point eight years ago, when this chunk of the electorate was 56 points more likely to disapprove than approve (75% to 18%), even as his overall standing effectively matches where he was in March 2017.

Among Hispanic voters and those of other races, Trump’s seen smaller declines, but is nonetheless underwater with both groups despite outperforming his standing eight years ago.

Along with Trump’s declines among nonwhite voters, his numbers have moved significantly among each generational cohort except Boomers — especially millennials, who are now equally likely to give him positive and negative marks after favoring his approach by 22 points in January.

And among men, the most dominant force in his positive numbers this term, his net approval rating has been cut in half, though they’re still better off than they were at the same point in 2017. Among women, on the other hand, his standing has fallen further — and they dislike him more now than they did eight years ago.

The bottom line

Trump’s decline among key groups has contributed to his worst approval rating yet in the nine weeks of surveys we’ve conducted since he took office earlier this year. This has left him virtually where he was eight years ago during his first term, and in a much worse position than Biden was around this time in 2021.

Trump’s post-election honeymoon can be declared over, but we’ll have to see whether this sticks. If recent presidencies, including Trump’s own, are any indication, these numbers are more likely to get worse than better for the rest of his presidency. And that would bode poorly for the durability of the broader GOP’s new, more racially diverse and young coalition. 

While we’re only over two months into Trump’s second term, what’s clear is that despite a piecemeal Democratic messaging operation against the country’s Republican governing trifecta, the political environment is shifting away from the GOP during what should be a fairly serene time for the party. 

The politics are only likely to get harder for them here as they work to extend tax cuts, consider cuts to popular social welfare and Trump’s inflationary trade agenda — especially if the opposition party can land on a more unified approach to pushback.