The universe is celebrating the apparent never-ending descent of Donald Trump in the polls. Or so we’re lead to believe. Only one problem… the polls don’t show that. At least, the one Newsweek decided to crow about a few days ago doesn’t. Chris Graham explains.
I’ve written about this many times in the past, mainly because it’s part-hobby (polls and numbers) and part bugbear (media misreporting polls and numbers). So here we go again….
In a piece earlier this week, Newsweek has claimed that support for US president Donald Trump is tanking, and that his numbers have reached record lows. It isn’t, and they haven’t, but before we get there, a quick background on the publication behind the claim.
At its peak in 2003, Newsweek had a worldwide circulation of more than 4 million copies every week, with editions published in Japanese, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Rioplatense Spanish (spoken in Argentina and Uruguay), Arabic, Turkish, Serbian and Russian. It even had a weekly international news section in the Australian magazine Bulletin (whose strapline on its masthead for most of its existence was ‘Australia for the White man’.. for what that’s worth).
By 2015, Newsweek was selling just 100,000 copies per month, which either gives you some idea of the impact of the internet on print media, or potentially just how bad Newsweek’s journalism became over time.
The truth is usually somewhere in the middle, although if this story is any guide, then the latter is the more likely.
So without further ado, here’s the claim from Newsweek… “Trump’s Approval Rating Deep Underwater on All Issues for First Time: Poll”
That’s the headline. Now here’s the story, in brief:
“President Donald Trump’s approval rating has slipped deep below water on every issue measured by an independent monthly tracker poll for the first time in the survey’s history.
“While Trump polled underwater on every issue with the tracker in February, March and May, this is the first time his rating has fallen well below zero across the board. The erosion spans issues Republicans have traditionally owned, which suggests the president is entering the final stretch before the midterms facing the most intense opposition of his second term.
“A new Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll fielded August 14-19, which surveyed 1,514 U.S. adults ages 18 and older found Trump underwater on all 12 issues it tracks, as border security — his last positive rating — slipped to −5. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percent.”
That last sentence – the margin of error – is key here, but we’ll come back to it in a minute. Because here’s the graph that appears immediately under it.
The math is pretty simple on this one… assuming the polling is accurate (which is a whole other sh*tfight, but for the sake of argument let’s just pretend the numbers are rock solid), Trump had an Approval Rating of 40% in May 2025, and a Disapproval Rating of 56%.
Fast forward to August 2026, and Trump now has an Approval Rating of 37%, and a Disapproval Rating of 60%.
In other words… almost nothing has changed. That’s thanks to the ‘Margin of Error’ of 2.6%. Which means, the polls have shifted, maybe, about 1%, give or take. Which is absolutely consistent with everything we know about Trump and the MAGA movement over the past decade.
People who support Trump – which, generally speaking, represents a little under one-third of the American voting age population – stick with him, no matter what he does. As Trump himself has said, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York, and he wouldn’t lose any support.
Or… he could be linked to one of the world’s notorious paedophiles… or he could start a war that he can’t end, which he promised he’d never start in the first place… or he could tank the economy… or he could be found liable in a court for rape… or 34 felonies… or he could foment insurrection at Capitol Hill and then pardon 1500 or so folks who violently assaulted police… or he could help kill babies with measles… or he could… you get the picture.
Meanwhile, everyone else in the US – two thirds of the voting age population – thinks Trump is a gronk and/or a human dumpster fire. But where’s the headline in ‘World’s most ridiculous leader still ridiculous?’
So instead, they tell you support for Trump is sinking, and at record rates no less.
Support for Trump today is in fact about the same it was shortly after he took office. And in fact, despite all the terrible things he’s done in office, as a percentage of the ‘Voting Eligible Population’, Trump has steadily become more popular the longer he’s contested politics.
Trump won 27.27% of the available votes in the 2016 election. In 2020, that increased 30.58% (despite him losing the election), and In 2024 it reached it’s highest point of 31.6%.
That’s not to suggest that overall, Trump is popular. He’s not. He is the most unpopular US president ever recorded, since polls began in 1937.
But it does mean that even though two out of every three eligible voters do not support Donald Trump, he’s still winning office, and he’s increasing his popularity over time, albeit not in leaps and bounds.
Voters have mostly made their minds up about Trump, and that’s reflected in the elections results, and the polling. Nowhere is that more clear than in 2024, shortly before the presidential election, when Trump was shot in the ear in a failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
He received a bump in the polls of just 1.2% - well within the margin of error, and previously unthinkably low, in terms of US public reaction to elected leaders being shot (after Ronald Reagan was wounded in 1981, just two months into his first presidential term, he received an instant 8-11 point bump in the polls, and went on to win the election four years later by the largest landslide in American political history).
Long story short, the news literally is there’s nothing new to see here, at least not in terms of Trump's level of support.
Sorry folks, it genuinely is business as usual, at least for now.
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