Donald Trump’s reaction to discouraging polling data has long been unhealthy. As 2026 got underway, for example, the president responded to evidence of his weak support by making up a generous new approval rating for himself, while asking the public to play along and pretend it’s real.
Weeks later, the Republican announced plans to sue The New York Times for publishing the results of a poll that apparently hurt his feelings. He added soon after that he believes pollsters are secretly conspiring against him — a practice the president said “should be, virtually, a criminal offense” — before concluding, “Something has to be done about Fraudulent Polling. … I am going to do everything possible to keep this Polling SCAM from moving forward!”
On Monday, however, Trump did something quite different: He briefly acknowledged — and expressed public disappointment about — his deteriorating standing.
At a White House event, the president expressed a sentiment he has rarely shared, saying, “It just amazes me that there’s not more support out there.”
The moment of candor was striking largely for its rarity. Trump generally prefers brazen dishonesty, routinely boasting about his imagined popularity, even thanking the American public for loving him with such broad intensity.
But on Monday, the mask slipped, and the president implicitly acknowledged the truth, even it was packaged in incredulity: Trump, who has long marveled at how awesome he considers his awesomeness, may not understand why he’s so unpopular, but he’s at least somewhat aware of the fact that he is unpopular.
That said, the candor was short-lived. Indeed, during the same White House event, the president claimed that he has “silent support” that independent surveys are overlooking, for reasons he did not explain, before adding, “I saw one [poll] today that I’m at 40%. I’m not at 40%. I’m at much higher than that.”
As it happens, even 40% was a bit of an exaggeration, with a growing number of national surveys consistently showing his support below that threshold. The latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, for example, shows Trump’s approval rating slipping to 39%. That was followed by a CNN poll that found him sinking to 36% support.
The latest NPR/PBS/Marist University poll, meanwhile, did not ask specifically about presidential approval but did find that most Americans believe the state of the union is not strong and that the United States is worse off now than it was a year ago. Specifically on Trump, the same data found 55% of Americans agreed that the president is generating change for the worse, while 53% said the White House’s policies have had a mostly negative personal impact on them. Asked about the data, a White House spokesperson told Politico that the “ultimate poll” was on Election Day in 2024. In a way, that’s true. If Trump and his team are comfortable with the idea that Americans put him back in power, that the president can’t run again and that polls reflecting public attitudes are therefore no longer relevant, they are welcome to embrace that attitude. But a whole lot of midterm elections are scheduled for the fall, and I have a hunch congressional Republicans are far more interested in 2026 polls than 2024 election results.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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