Trump approval drops to 35% as Republican support softens, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
Written by: Jason Lange and Nathan Layne
WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s presidential approval rating has fallen to nearly its lowest level since returning to the White House, as support among Republicans declines, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The four-day survey ending Monday showed 35% of the country approving of Trump’s job performance, down one point from a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken earlier this month and slightly above the 34% low point of Trump’s presidency last month. Trump began his current term in January 2025 with a 47% approval rating.
The president’s popularity has taken a hit this year as Americans suffer from rising gas prices since Trump ordered an attack on Iran along with Israel in February.
The war has stalled much of global oil trade, caused pump prices for Americans to be nearly 50% higher and raised concerns among Trump’s Republican allies, who will defend their congressional majorities in the November midterm elections.
Discontent is spreading within Trump’s party; 21% of Republicans say they now disapprove of the president’s performance, compared to 5% just after he took office in January 2025. In the poll, 79% of Republicans said Trump was doing a good job. That rate was 82% earlier in the month and 91% at the beginning of his term.
Republicans were particularly troubled by Trump’s approach to Americans’ cost of living, an issue he vowed to address during his 2024 campaign in the wake of the hyperinflation crisis that bedeviled his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. Only 47 percent of Republicans have a positive view of Trump on the cost of living issue, while 46 percent say Trump is doing a bad job. Among Americans overall, only one in five approve of Trump’s handling of the cost of living.
The survey, conducted online, collected responses from 1,271 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points for Americans overall and 5 percentage points for Republicans.
Republican political strategists said the decline in Trump’s popularity could be a sign of waning enthusiasm among Republican voters ahead of November elections that will take control of both houses of the US Congress.
“My biggest concern is that Republicans do not seem as motivated as Democrats to participate in the midterm elections,” said Republican consultant Jeanette Hoffman. Hoffman said it remains unclear how much impact Trump’s declining numbers will have, with four-fifths of Republicans still supporting him. “80% is still a pretty big number,” he said.
Trump’s support within his party has been a firmer push for immigration policy, another central issue of his 2024 presidential campaign, which has galvanized core supporters, a group he calls the Make America Great Again movement, or MAGA. 82 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, little changed from last year.
Trump also took office promising to avoid what he calls “endless wars” such as the US military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan that have occupied US troops for much of the last quarter-century.
He argued that the conflict with Iran had been successful and suggested that the attacks had killed the country’s leader and many senior politicians. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since April, but Iran has largely refused to allow oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war saw a fifth of global oil trade.
According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 62 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the situation in Iran, while 28 percent disapprove. An overwhelming majority of Democrats and two-thirds of independents do not approve of this proposal.
Only one in four survey respondents overall and about half of Republicans said U.S. military action in Iran was worth it.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell)
