U.S. President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during an executive order signing event in the Oval Office of the White House on March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC.Andrew Harnik/Getty
President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have dropped to their lowest level since the start of his second term.
According to the NBC News Decision Desk Poll released on Sunday, only 37 percent of adults approve of Trump’s work as president. Meanwhile, 63 percent disapprove, including 50 percent who disapprove strongly. Some of that strong disapproval comes from Trump’s handling of skyrocketing costs for most households: Among the over 32,000 American adults that NBC News surveyed over two weeks in March and April, 52 percent said they “strongly disapprove” and 16 percent “somewhat disapprove” of Trump’s handling of inflation and the cost of living.
That’s a large disapproval jump compared to a few months ago. When NBC News asked the same inflation question to Americans last August, 45 percent noted they “strongly disapprove”—seven percentage points lower than this month’s results.
The NBC results also suggest that Trump is beginning to lose his voter base. The number of Republicans who approve of Trump’s performance on inflation sank by 10 percentage points (from 83 to 73 percent) since last summer. The poll also found that overall support for the president dropped by four percentage points (from 87 to 83 percent) among his Republican support in just two months.
Inflation has taken a toll across the country: 40 percent of the NBC poll respondents said their personal finances were worse today than a year ago. That’s the highest response to that question of any poll by the network during Trump’s second term.
The poll also found that approximately two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s war campaign in Iran. NBC News reported on Sunday that this percentage did not change significantly even after the US government announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran earlier in April. The agreement is set to expire this week.
Notably, the Decision Desk poll recorded improvements in Trump’s approval rating on immigration and border security at 44 percent, a four percentage point increase from the previous survey in late January and early February. This comes after Trump removed Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino in late January and DHS secretary Kristi Noem in March.
According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit and nonpartisan data research and distribution organization at Syracuse University, over 60,000 people are being detained by ICE as of April 4. About 70 percent of those detainees have no criminal convictions. Meanwhile, the number of immigrants who have died while in ICE custody has reached a record-high. Since last October, 29 people have died, according to NPR, exceeding the previous annual record.
With midterm elections coming up this fall, continuous drops in Trump’s approval ratings could impact key races across the country if Americans see them as a referendum on the failures of his administration.
