President Donald Trump has been hit with an embarrassing new record as he juggles a failing war abroad and a sinking economy at home.
Nate Silver, the veteran election and poll analyst who created FiveThirtyEight, said Trump’s approval rating has hit a second-term low, a nadir that comes after a slight improvement earlier this month. But as Trump’s war on Iran has spiraled again and gas prices continue climbing as a result, the public has reacted.
Silver reported that just 38.2 percent of Americans approve of Trump while 58.8 percent disapprove, putting his net approval rating at minus 20.6 percent. “Timing lines up remarkably well with gas prices and the resumption of hostilities in Iran,” Silver wrote on X.
The New York Times, which runs a daily average of polls conducted by dozens of organizations since Inauguration Day, has Trump’s approval rating at 38 percent, a figure the average has hovered around for months, “though high-quality pollsters have recently found his approval as low as 30 percent and as high as 40 percent,” the paper reported.
The grim numbers keep piling up. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS on Thursday showed Democrats ahead by 8 points on the generic congressional ballot, a lead that widens to 20 points among voters who are “extremely motivated” to vote.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday put Trump’s approval at a record low of just 32 percent, while a separate AP-NORC poll on Thursday found him at 33 percent. About two-thirds of U.S. adults say the war, which began on Feb. 28, has not been worthwhile, according to that AP-NORC survey.
Trump’s approval has tanked throughout 2026, with opposition to the Iran war and its economic fallout emerging as a major driver of public frustration. Those chickens came home to roost on Thursday, when new data showed the U.S. economy slowing to an annualized growth rate of just 1.5 percent in the second quarter, as the conflict hammered energy markets, fractured supply chains, and drove up everyday costs.
The sluggish figure marks a sharp drop from the 2.1 percent growth rate recorded in the first three months of the year, according to initial estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Most economists had expected second-quarter growth of about 2 to 2.1 percent, making Thursday’s 1.5 percent reading an unwelcome surprise.
The White House has been approached for comment.
