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by WILL FOLKS
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U.S. president Donald Trump‘s mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein drama is costing him in the polls. According to the latest rolling averages of public opinion surveys tabulated by RealClearPolitics, only 45.5% of Americans currently approve of job Trump is doing – compared to 52.1% who disapprove.
That’s a negative spread of 6.6% – nearly as bad as 7.2% disapproval gap recorded back on April 29, 2025 (the current public approval nadir of the second Trump administration). Trump has been underwater – i.e. more poll respondents have disapproved of his job performance than approved – since mid-March, a mere 51 days into his second term as president.
And while no one would be criticized for doubting the veracity of mainstream polling, it’s worth noting even the Big Data Poll – long viewed as a pro-Trump bellwether – had him narrowly underwater for the first time in its latest survey.
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“The White House clearly lost the messaging war over the One Big Beautiful Bill and that’s in no small part due to those achievements being overshadowed,” noted Big Data pollster Rich Baris.
Overshadowed by the Epstein scandal, in particular…
While Trump struggles, Democrats cannot seem to capitalize on the opening. According to a new Quinnipiac poll, only 19% of voters approve of the way congressional Democrats are handling their duties – compared to 72% who disapprove.
“This is a record low since March 2009 when the Quinnipiac University Poll first began asking this question of registered voters,” pollsters noted.
Among Democrat voters, only 39% approved of the way congressional Democrats were doing their job – compared to 52% who disapproved, per Quinnipiac. Conversely, 77% of GOP voters approved of how Republicans in congress were discharging their duties compared to 20% who disapproved. Overall, 33% of voters approve of congressional Republicans compared to 62% who disapproved.
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RELATED | TRUMP’S EPSTEIN HEADACHE WON’T GO AWAY
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And while the mere mention of “congress” drives up negatives, the most recent Harvard/Harris poll – one of the few credible “mainstream” surveys in recent months – found overall Democrat approval at 40%, down two percentage points from June.
In other words, even with a sizable chunk of Trump’s MAGA base in revolt over Epstein – Democrats cannot seem to gain any ground.
“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,” I noted back in March.
And there’s no indication even the cleverest Democrats get that…
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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. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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4 comments
You don’t understand those numbers, do you? Not being critical…this stuff is hard. I just wonder why you cannot get out of your own way when you are writing propaganda…
A dip? He’s tanking and it’s not just because of his pedo pal Epstein. He’s underwater on the economy as well as immigration. Odds are that the WH is not telling the entire story about his health issues, because they lie on an hourly basis.
In the meantime he’s working on the big issues like getting the Redkins and Indians names restored in the hopes of getting the base a bone to chew on.
Idiot
You guys just can’t stomach the fact that you elected a guy who played you for a fool. He knew he was in the Epstein files from the beginning, and he never intended to let that get out in the public. Of course this is not news to anyone with a brain. We all have known he was all over the Epstein files for years. There are dozens of pictures of him partying with Epstein and hanging out with “young” girls. You thought you were going after monsters, but you were duped into supporting monsters. “There are no so blind as he who will not see.”