Donald Trump's approval rating has collapsed to 34%, according to a new CNN poll, matching the lowest point of his political career: the days immediately after he incited a mob to attack the United States Capitol. That's the company he's keeping now. Himself, from January 2021.
The Numbers Are Brutal Across the Board
The CNN survey, conducted by market research firm SSRS and published July 30, finds three-quarters of Americans believe Trump is not paying enough attention to the country's most pressing problems. Two-thirds say he places his own interests above the needs of the United States.
Think about that for a second. Two-thirds of the country. That is not a partisan divide. That is a verdict.
With midterm elections fewer than 100 days away, this is the kind of polling that makes Republican incumbents quietly update their resumes. The GOP is widely expected to lose control of at least one chamber of Congress, and data like this explains why party operatives are reportedly in open panic mode.
The Iran War Is Bleeding Him Out
The ongoing war in Iran is doing serious damage. According to the CNN poll, only 28% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the conflict. Even worse: just 25% say the war has been worth the cost in money and American lives.
One in four. A quarter of the country thinks this was worth it. The other three-quarters do not, and apparently they've noticed the gas prices.
Seventy-four percent of respondents say rising gas prices have caused them at least some hardship, up from 63% in March. That's a 11-point jump in a few months, which tracks neatly with what happens when you start a war in a major oil-producing region and then act surprised when fuel costs spiral.
On the Economy, He's Lost Even His Own Baseline
A year ago, 58% of Americans said Trump hadn't gone far enough in trying to bring down the cost of everyday goods. That number has climbed to 71% this week, per the CNN poll. So even the people who thought he should be doing more are now a significantly larger and angrier group.
This is what economic failure looks like in polling form. It's not that people are ideologically opposed to Trump's approach. It's that they went to the grocery store.
Immigration Was His Last Safe Harbor. Not Anymore.
For months, Trump's hardline immigration stance was the one policy area where his numbers held relatively firm. Voters who were frustrated with everything else often still gave him credit for being tough on the border.
That's gone now. The CNN poll finds only 39% think he's doing a good job on immigration, and 54% say he has gone too far in mass deporting undocumented immigrants. The cruelty, it turns out, has a ceiling. Apparently five-plus years of images of families separated at the border, ICE raids on churches, and deportation flights to third countries the detainees had never visited has finally moved the needle.
When your signature issue starts dragging you down, you're in real trouble.
The Vanity Projects Aren't Helping
While the country fights a war, watches gas prices climb, and worries about grocery bills, the 80-year-old president has been pursuing a taxpayer-funded White House ballroom, a botched renovation of the Washington DC reflecting pool, and plans for what the Guardian describes as a self-aggrandizing ceremonial arch.
Seventeen percent of Americans feel positive about this. Seventeen. You can get 17% of Americans to agree on almost nothing, and yet somehow the grand self-monument program has managed to unite 83% of the country in distaste.
In the same poll, 73% of respondents said Trump is out of touch with the problems Americans face in everyday life. The man is building himself an arch. The math tracks.
The Stamina Question Is Getting Louder
Fifty-seven percent of Americans now say Trump, at 80, lacks the stamina and mental sharpness to serve effectively as president, according to the CNN survey. Only 38% consider him an effective world leader.
Remember when the entire press corps spent 18 months obsessively scrutinizing Joe Biden's age and cognitive fitness? Every stumble, every verbal stumble, every moment of fatigue was front-page news. The same standard is now pointing directly at the current president, and the majority of the American public has reached a conclusion.
Whether the press corps will apply the same relentless energy to this story is, at this point, a genuinely open question.
The Dingo Take
A 34% approval rating tied to the January 6 insurrection is not a political rough patch. It is a historical judgment. The last time Trump hit this number, he had just sent a mob to hang his own vice president. Now he's hit it again by starting a war most Americans think wasn't worth fighting, letting grocery prices eat people's paychecks, deporting people at a scale that even his own supporters think went too far, and spending public money on a ceremonial arch to himself. Different catastrophes. Same number.
The midterms are coming, and the GOP's internal math is a nightmare. Republican incumbents in competitive districts have to decide whether to run toward Trump or away from him, and both options carry serious risks when the guy has a 34% approval and 73% of the country says he's out of touch. There is no good play here. You either defend the indefensible or you distance yourself from a man who will absolutely spend the next 100 days making it personal.
Somewhere in all of this, there's a version of the Republican Party that could have course-corrected. That chose policy over personality, governing over grievance. That version lost the argument in 2015 and never recovered. What's left is a party now strapped to a president who is underwater on immigration, underwater on the economy, underwater on a war he started, and building himself a monument with your tax dollars while 57% of Americans wonder if he's still sharp enough to be doing any of this. The arch will look great, though. You have to give him that.
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