By Aaron Blake, CNN
A series of recent polls has shown that the number of Americans who "strongly approve" of Donald Trump has sunk to around one in five. Photo: AFP
Analysis - A year ago, President Donald Trump spoke as though the American people had just delivered him a landslide for the ages.
"America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate," he said shortly after Election Day in November. He said in his inaugural address in January that his win showed how "the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda."
Trump's claims were vastly overstated at the time. But a year later, they're virtually impossible to reconcile with Trump's reality.
Indeed, Trump's support now appears as shallow as ever.
While plenty have focused on his declining overall approval ratings, perhaps the better measure of Trump's political power is those who strongly approve of him. After all, so much of his political stature is built on his domination of the GOP base; it's how he keeps his party in line.
A series of recent polls has shown this "strongly approve" number sinking to around one in five Americans. That's a new low for his second term in virtually every poll, and many polls show it's rivalling the lowest readings from his first term, too.
A new NBC News-SurveyMonkey poll over the weekend showed that number dropping from 26 percent in April down to 21 percent today. (It also showed the percentage of MAGA Republicans who strongly approved of Trump declining from 78 percent to 70 percent.)
But it's not the only survey to show this number hitting a low ebb. Here's where the number has stood in recent polls:
- 18 percent in an AP-NORC poll this month. The only lower readings in the survey's extensive history came in 2017 (15 percent in December 2017 and 16 percent in June 2017).
- 19 percent in a Reuters-Ipsos poll this month. That's also a new low this year and down from 29 percent in January.
- 22 percent in a Fox News poll last month. Trump's previous low in either of his terms was 25 percent.
- 21 percent in a Marquette University Law School poll last month, the lowest of his second term.
One recent poll showed something somewhat different: the Marist University poll for NPR and PBS News last month. It showed Trump's strong approval rating a bit higher, at 26 percent. Unlike these other polls, that was higher than it was for much of Trump's first term, according to Marist's polling.
But it was still a new second-term low. And it's actually similar to his number after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when Trump's support fell to new lows.
This is one of the key numbers to watch moving forward.
Trump is no stranger to polling woes. But he's always remained politically strong because of the size and devotion of his base. That prevents Republicans from objecting to his actions or criticizing him.
The danger for Trump now is that Republicans are beginning to see him as a lame duck, and they don't fear political consequences of breaking with him as much.
We've started to see examples of this, from the House Republicans who bucked him to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files to Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to the recent vote in the Indiana Senate, where a majority of Republicans stood up to Trump's demands that they redraw their congressional map.
Having the strong support of only 1 in 5 Americans isn't going to suddenly open the floodgates for Republicans to break with Trump. But it does suggest his truly devoted base is looking about as small as ever.
As is his mandate.
- CNN