Donald Trump’s approval rating on the US economy has fallen to a new low, while 65% of Americans blame his policies more than outside factors for persistently high prices, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Just 26% of adults approve of the Republican president’s handling of the economy, down 14 percentage points from March 2025. Only 17% approve of his performance on the cost of living.
The findings come weeks before the midterm elections, which will determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress. Trump is due to campaign with an extensive schedule of rallies and has urged voters to treat the contest as though he were on the ballot.
But the poll suggests that economic dissatisfaction is cutting through even among Republicans. About six in ten members of the party disapprove of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, up from roughly half in April, while about seven in ten Americans say his performance has been worse than expected.
Robert Gault, a 66-year-old retired factory worker from Bradford, Pennsylvania, who describes himself as a Republican, said he had expected more from the president.
“I was hoping it would be better or different, but it’s not really good,” he said. “Our president, I thought, was going to help the country, and so far he has not really seemed to have done that with the economy or in general.”
Americans feel pressure from rising costs
Concern about paying for essentials has intensified. About half of adults are now extremely or very worried about being able to afford petrol, compared with 39% in July, and a similar proportion are highly concerned about the cost of food.
Pedro Sanchez, a 52-year-old law enforcement worker from Perris, California, who voted for Trump, said rising prices had eroded his disposable income.
“Prices are extremely exorbitant. Just the cost of everything is going up as a result of fuel,” he said. “I used to have a lot more disposable income. I don’t have that any more.”
Bethany Lnenicka, 41, who runs a small farm in Fairfax, Iowa, said grocery prices had become increasingly difficult to manage.
“Groceries are just like kind of out of control. It seems like everything is going up,” she said. “And of course your income doesn’t go up.”
Lnenicka, an independent who usually votes Republican and has backed Trump three times, said she had hoped his second term would resemble his first. “I just do not feel like it has gotten a lot better,” she said.
Overall, 65% of Americans say Trump’s policies are more responsible for high prices than factors outside his control. That contrasts with the view among Republicans, 67% of whom continue to put more blame on external factors.
Tariffs and Iran add to the political pressure
Trump’s handling of trade negotiations is approved by only about three in ten adults, down from about four in ten in March. Meanwhile, 64% say he has gone too far with new tariffs on other countries, compared with 58% in January.
The president’s handling of Iran is approved by 28%, while 69% say the war has not been worth fighting, up slightly from 64% in July.
Kristen Slaven, a 41-year-old mental health therapist from Gluckstadt, Mississippi, who typically votes Republican, said the administration was concentrating on the wrong priorities.
“Obviously wars don’t help. When they’re necessary, I understand. But our focus on renaming bodies of water and pieces of land, that’s just stupid to me when people can’t feed their family,” she said.
Trump retains greater support on border security, with about half of Americans approving of his performance in that area. Overall, however, only about three in ten approve of his handling of the presidency, and six in ten say the country is worse off than when he began his second term.
The poll’s economic findings are comparable with Joe Biden’s 28% approval rating on the issue in June 2022, during a period of record-high inflation. But in October that year, only 44% blamed Biden’s policies for high prices, while 55% attributed them to factors outside his control.
Sanchez said Trump’s tariffs and the war with Iran had directly affected the economy, whereas he believed much of the pressure under Biden had been linked to the Covid pandemic.
“I think he has a lot to do with it,” Sanchez said of Trump. “I had high hopes for Trump’s return. Now, things seem worse than under Biden.”
The AP-NORC poll surveyed 2,140 adults between September 24 and 28. Its margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
