Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics.
Trump in the tank
Donald Trump is somehow only six months into his second presidency but if it feels like it’s torturously longer, you’re not alone. Americans are souring on him quickly.
Gallup finds Trump with his lowest approval rating since retaking the White House in January. Just 37% of Americans approve of the way he’s handled his job as president. That’s down from a high of 47% in January, and it brings him very close to the numbers he exited the White House with in January 2021, when 34% approved of him.
Independents are primarily the ones steering his approval rating south. Only 29% approve of the way he’s handling the presidency, down from 36% in June.
Republicans and Democrats largely haven’t changed their minds about him. Eighty-nine percent of Republicans approve of him, slightly lower than his high of 93% in February. Meanwhile, 2% of Democrats approve, which is down from a high of 6% in January.
Altogether, Trump’s poor approval rating is historic. Literally. Among presidents who first took office after World War II, none have had a lower average approval rating in the second quarter of their second term, which, for Trump, spans April 20 to July 19 of this year.
Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton each enjoyed majority approval on average in the second quarter of their second terms. Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Richard Nixon landed in the high-to-mid-40s. Trump, though? Just 40%.
In fact, the only president who got a worse rating in his second quarter was … Trump, in his first term. In 2017, he scored just 39% approval on average in the second quarter of that term.
The reason for this souring public sentiment appears to be his falling numbers across many key issues. Since February, he has fallen 8 percentage points on his handling of immigration, 6 points on foreign trade, 4 points on foreign affairs, and 4 points on the situation between Israelis and Palestinians. Since March, he’s slipped 8 points on his handling of the situation in Ukraine and a shocking 14 points on his approach to the federal budget.
Most damning for him, though, is his grade on inflation. Data from YouGov finds Trump with his worst approval on that issue since retaking office in January. Only 1 in 3 Americans approves of his handling of inflation, while 61% disapprove, according to the latest polling. That makes for a net approval rating of -29 points. In January, he was +6 points on the issue.
That finding is backed up by a new poll from the famed Marquette University Law School, which finds Trump 30 points underwater on handling inflation. Worse for him, inflation is the most important issue to Americans, with 1 in 3 flagging it as the top problem.
Of course, there may be another problem that’s causing his approval to tumble …
Epstein scandal gains even more steam
Trump’s biggest unforced error yet might just be his administration’s bungled handling of the case files around convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, one of Trump’s former pals. Americans are mad about the administration’s handling of the files, but a deluge of new polling shows they think they have a good idea of why the administration is being cagey.
Fifty-three percent of Americans think the administration hasn’t released the files because Trump is named in them, according to YouGov. The firm also finds that 61% think Trump is named in the Epstein files. Both results were released on Thursday, the day after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department briefed Trump about his name appearing “multiple times” in the files.
Both polls find that Republicans are not outright defending Trump, either. In both, around 1 in 3 Republicans answers “not sure” instead of responding “yes” or “no,” signaling discomfort with the issue. Which makes sense. The Republican base has long sought for the government to release its files on Epstein—and now it could harm their main guy? Talk about friendly fire.
The reason for that squeamishness? Well, 49% of Republicans think Trump had at least a little knowledge of Epstein’s crimes before any allegations became public, according to a July 18 poll from YouGov. Only 21% say he knew nothing.
That said, it could also be that Democrats are more willing to jump on this scandal and assume they know more than they do. In all three of these polls, only 11-12% of Democrats answered “not sure,” and in all three, independents’ “not sure” figures were much more closely aligned with Republicans’.
Either way, it’s notable that Republicans aren’t also assuming they know more and that Trump is clean in the scandal.
Something else to keep in mind: Despite two bombshell reports from The Wall Street Journal, one hitting on July 17 and the other this past Wednesday, the share of Americans who think Trump is involved in Epstein’s crimes is high—but largely unchanged since early June. Around 45% of Americans think Trump was involved.
Maybe if the Justice Department ends up folding and releasing more files, that number will increase. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why we haven’t seen them.
Is there a landfill in your backyard?
Three months ago, Trump’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, visited a hazardous landfill near St. Louis, where an underground garbage fire burns toward an old cache of nuclear waste. After this, he moved to speed up cleanup.
The Trump administration is weakening regulations around landfill emissions, even when those emissions contain toxic chemicals like benzene, which can cause leukemia and other cancers.
So you might be wondering … how close is the nearest landfill? Well, Daily Kos has built a tool for that.
Using the most recent data from the Environmental Protection Agency, we plotted out on the map below nearly every active and shuttered municipal solid-waste landfill in the United States and its territories. You’ll also find each site’s tonnage of waste. Some sites had to be excluded from the map due to the government not providing high-quality location data or the site’s waste tonnage.
Nevertheless, further down, you’ll find a searchable table that has all 2,641 landfills in the U.S., including the state, city, and county for each one.
Any updates?
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Trump wants to make two sports teams—the NFL’s Washington Commanders and the MLB’s Cleveland Guardians—revert to their old, racist names. But Americans think he’s overstepping: Roughly two-thirds say it’s unacceptable for him to make such a demand, while only 15% think it’s acceptable, according to YouGov. Even a plurality of Republicans (38%) say it’s unacceptable.
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Sure, defunding public media may hurt the very rural Americans who overwhelmingly voted Trump into office last year, but it’s also widely unpopular. Only 27% of Americans want to see federal funding for public broadcasting cut or eliminated, according to the latest YouGov/The Economist poll. Meanwhile, 33% want funding to be kept the same, and 28% want it to be increased.
Vibe check
For all the attention that cryptocurrency gets, including from the president, you’d expect for a lot of people to own it. Yet only 14% of American adults own any, according to Gallup. Those mostly likely to own it are men ages 18 to 49 (25% own some) and those in households making $90,000 or more a year (19% own it).
But outside of those folks, the vast majority of Americans show no appetite to hop on the blockchain. A strong majority (60%) have no interest in ever buying crypto, and another 17% are intrigued but have no intentions of buying it anytime soon.