Politics
NEW: Trump Approval Skyrockets To Record Levels After Triumphant Week
A series of international wins for President Donald Trump is lifting his status in the minds of voters, according to new polling numbers released this week.
From tariff deals with China and the U.K. to mammoth Middle East investments in U.S. jobs and manufacturing, Trump is delivering on his signature promise to Make America Great Again, voters say. He arrives home after a productive week visiting with Saudi and Qatari officials to enjoy a level of support unseen since the early days of his administration.
Trump’s job performance, a key metric, received 55% positive feedback from poll respondents, compared to 44% who disapproved.
InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt Towery attributed the shift to a large number of previously undecided voters who now “have moved heavily towards approval of President Trump’s job performance. Trump enjoys a positive rating from all age groups other than seniors. His support among other demographics are similar or above the level of supports seen in our final battleground poll of battleground states in 2024.”
The survey of 1,000 likely voters is an early sampling of the electorate more likely to turn out in the 2026 midterms compared to a presidential year, when less active voters make their quadrennial pilgrimage to the ballot box.
Cook Political Report also scooped the early results of a Democrat-aligned poll by data firm Catalist, its so-called “What Happened” poll released after every presidential cycle. The findings emphasize Trump’s popularity in unlikely corners of the electorate; Cook enumerated them with a subheader that blares “The Obama Coalition Turned Into the Trump Coalition.”
Among black men, Harris performed 7 points worse than Biden and 12 points worse among Latino men. She also bled support among Hispanic women while failing to grow support among black women compared to Biden’s level of support in 2020.
Other findings include:
- Younger voters shift right. “Among all young voters, Harris underperformed Biden by six points, but the gap was much larger among younger Latino (-12) and AAPI (-9) voters. Among Black and white younger voters, the drop-off in support from 2020 was less severe (-4).”
- Infrequent voters broke for Trump. These voters tend to be more diverse, urban, and with lower levels of education, all hallmarks of the traditional Democratic coalition but who in 2024 favored Trump.
- Harris lost support among “super voters.” These are the voters who have participated in the last four major elections and tend to be whiter and more educated. But even among the “elitist” crowd of college-educated Democrats, many more appeared to stay home compared to four years ago.
For the first time in over a decade, the “churn” of new voters entering the presidential election was a majority Republican. If Democrats want to return to power, Catalist writes, they would do well to appeal to these voters who have grown apathetic about their party.
“The Republican playbook has historically counted less on refreshing these rotating marginal voters,” writes Catalist, “but these data suggest that may become a more important part of their electoral coalition.”
And, while they suggest that “future Republican candidates may not be able to replicate Trump’s performance,” future Republican campaigns now have a roadmap to victory — something they didn’t have before Trump re-imagined the GOP coalition, Cook concludes.
