After weeks of bad economic news and recession fears everywhere, the overall picture is starting to catch up with Donald Trump.
According to a new poll released Wednesday morning from CNN and SSRS, the president is now underwater on the economy. When asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?,” 45 percent answered “approve,” and 54 percent said “disapprove.” As for his overall approval rating, 45 percent approve and 54 percent disapprove.
“As markets slide and investors worry in response to Trump’s trade policies, a 56% majority of the public disapproves of his handling of the economy, worse than at any point during his first term in office,” according to a CNN analysis of the poll. “By contrast, the 51% who now say they approve of his work on immigration – headlined by stricter enforcement efforts – is 7 points higher than at any point during his first term.”
Immigration, however, is the only issue in which Trump is above water, in approval.
Events matter! The stock market crashed, people noticed, and they got mad!
Too many people have become convinced that politics is all simulacrum. https://t.co/VyFFAobfHS pic.twitter.com/DY1dgYBz1F
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 12, 2025
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The poll added that Republicans are “roughly 10 times as likely as Democrats to approve of his job performance.”
The polling news was also not great for Elon Musk. It appears American voters are uneasy with unprecedented power being handed to an unelected business oligarch.
🚨 NEW SSRS POLL 🚨
Trump approval rating sinking faster than the Russian Navy:
Disapprove 54% (+9)
Approve 45%On Economy: -12 (Lowest Ever)https://t.co/3a9P7CWGbY
— MaineWonk (@TheMaineWonk) March 12, 2025
“Just 35% of Americans express a positive view of Musk, with 53% rating him negatively and 11% offering no opinion – making him better known and more substantially unpopular than Vice President JD Vance,” the polling analysis said. “Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say that Musk has neither the right experience nor the right judgment to change how the government works. There is uneasiness about Musk even among some of the president’s supporters: 28% of those who see Trump’s changes to the government as necessary doubt the tech billionaire has the judgment to carry them out.”
For those who believed that Trump would never be more powerful, or have more momentum than he did on the first day of his second presidency, that he wouldn’t wear well, and that voters would get sick of the Trump Show just as they did in their first term, the new polling numbers represent some measure of vindication.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
