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U.S. president Donald Trump‘s approval rating went underwater for the first time during his second term this past week, according to rolling averages of public opinion surveys tabulated by RealClearPolitics.
Trump enjoyed a narrow favorability edge for the first fifty-one (51) days of his second administration, but last Thursday (March 13, 2025) RealClear‘s rolling average showed 48.5% of Americans disapproved of his job performance compared to 47.8% who approved – a spread of -0.7%. That margin has since eased to -0.2% as of today (March 16, 2025).
Driving down Trump’s numbers? The economy…
I wrote during Trump’s transition about the challenges he faced on this front, and just last week our Dylan Nolan updated our audience on how he was faring in meeting those challenges.
The good news for Trump? While his approval rating has softened somewhat amid the recent market jitters, the percentage of Americans who believe the country is headed in the right direction has soared to its highest reading since May of 2021.
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Per RealClear‘s rolling averages, 42.3% of Americans now believe the country is moving in the right direction compared to 51.7% who say it is on the wrong track. While that’s still a gap of 9.4%, it represents a huge difference from a few short months ago. Prior to the 2024 election, only 26.3% of Americans felt the country was on the right track compared to 62.9% who believed it was headed in the wrong direction – a gap of 36.6%.
That’s not the best news for Trump, though. While his approval isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, it’s dramatically better than the data Democrats are dealing with.
According to a CNN poll released on Sunday (March 16, 2025), a mere 29% of respondents had a favorable impression of the party compared to 54% who viewed Democrats unfavorably. Democrats’ approval was the lowest the survey had ever recorded, although the left-of-center network quickly moved to pin the abysmal numbers on the failure of party leaders “to stand up to President Trump.”
An NBC poll also released on Sunday painted an even worse picture for Democrats. According to its data, only 27% of respondents viewed the party positively – a record low for the poll. Meanwhile, looking at intensity, only 7% of respondents viewed the party “very favorably,” also a record low. Conversely, 55% of respondents viewed the party unfavorably – including 38% who viewed it “very negatively.”
“The Democratic Party is not in need of a rebrand,” NBC’s pollster noted. “It needs to be rebooted.”
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RELATED | RENEWED DANGER OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
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Such a reboot will be easier said than done. Like CNN’s spin on its poll, NBC’s take on the data it released was that Democrats need to do more to oppose Trump – because that’s what a majority of Democrats said they wanted.
“Self-identified Democratic voters say they want their party to hold the line on their positions even if it leads to gridlock, rather than focus on finding areas of compromise with the president,” the network noted.
That may be true, but what about the broad swaths of the party (42% per CNN and 32% per NBC) desirous of a more cooperative relationship with Trump and the GOP? Odds are those voters aren’t eager for more performative progressive politics such as Democrats exhibited during the president’s recent address to congress. Also, those voters probably aren’t eager to embrace the über-woke agenda which led to the party’s decisive defeat at the ballot box last fall.
Which leads us to Democrats’ fundamental problem: the socialist, progressive, woke wing of the party is dragging it so far to the ideological left that independents and even large numbers of Democrats are abandoning it in droves.
Is “holding the line” really the answer, then? Or is that only going to make things worse for the party?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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2 comments
Trump/ Musk appear to be doing some good things. De-funding USAID and other wasteful and evil stuff is an idea whose time is long overdue. That said, the dynamic duo is stepping on their own d-cks, and those of a lot of good people, by targeting useful and legitimate jobs and programs.
One such program is the VA. Veterans working at the VA hospital are losing jobs doing work that is helpful and meaningful to disabled Veterans. Valet parking at VA hospitals is helpful to clients who have limited mobility or who find walking painful. It prevents these heroes from having to make a long and unnecessary hike from a parking lot or garage to their treatment area at the facility. As I understand it, there are also employees who will meet these heroes with wheelchairs and push them where they need to go within the facility. Imagine suffering with limited or painful mobility and being forced to hike all over a large VA hospital campus. Cutting these jobs is a slap in the face to our disabled service men and women.
I just read where funding to Indian Affairs is being drastically cut. Again, you have a class of Americans who have historically been wronged for centuries, and you find a way to add more insult and injury?
Talk is The National Weather Service/NOAA is getting a lot of cuts. This is a vital service and one of the few things GovCo mostly seems to get right……well, other than the man-made climate change bs. Cut that and leave the forecssting alone.
There is plenty of waste to cut, and yes they are all going to cry that their group is important and necessary, but the three noted above really deserve to be cut some slack.
Don’t trash an otherwise great thing (DOGE) by targeting good stuff.
See that is the problem with Trump cult members. They don’t understand how Government works and they don’t care. Just because you believe Trump and Elon, are doing good thing, is irrelevant. Because you have no way of knowing. Trump and Elon are just eliminating anything THEY don’t like so they can save money to give it to billionaires like Elon and Trump. All this cutting of things that benefit average Americans, all the jobs they are eliminating, all the BS fake cuts Elon has made, all the disruption to our national security and our system of justice; all the giving Russia whatever they want, all the evil they have done, all the sick and hungry children they have abandoned, all the racism they have spread, since Trump took office will not save the US one red cent. Because they plan to give every penny they can get their hands on away to billionaires and giant corporations. Because that is how corrupt politicians work. That is what they do. Trump is corrupt, which is what Elon needed; someone who wants to rape our country and steal everything he can get his hands on to team up with.