President Trump's approval rating has sunk to 33% in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, matching his all-time low, as a grinding war in Iran, surging gas prices, and stubborn inflation hand Democrats fresh ammunition heading into November's midterms.
The two-point slide from 35% just one week earlier landed Trump at the same floor he hit in December 2017, during his first term. Sixty-four percent of the 1,166 respondents said they disapprove of his job performance, Fox News Digital reported. The numbers arrive less than three months before midterm elections in which Democrats are openly targeting both the House and the Senate.
The White House pushed back hard. Spokesperson Olivia Wales rattled off a list of accomplishments, tax cuts, lower prescription drug costs, a sealed border, falling violent crime, surging 401(k) balances, and cast the current moment as an inherited mess still being cleaned up.
"President Trump is cleaning up Joe Biden's mess, and there is more work to do, but the United States of America has never been stronger."
Wales's framing, "more work to do", concedes what the numbers make plain: the Iran campaign that began in February has imposed real costs on American households, and voters are keeping score.
When the war started, the administration explained it as a mission to eliminate Iran's nuclear weapons program. National average gas prices at the time sat just under $3 a gallon. Six months later, AAA data shows the average has climbed past $4. Year-over-year inflation, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics pegged at 2.4% in February, now stands at 3.4%.
Those are not abstract indicators. They show up at the pump and the grocery store, and they land hardest on the working families who form the core of Trump's coalition. At a rally with law enforcement in Garden City, New York, on August 14, Trump acknowledged the squeeze but framed it as a patriotic trade-off.
"Remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, $4, it's OK."
He added: "I'll never apologize." The president argued he had done "the right thing," and at the same event he touted record-low crime rates, a metric that plays to one of his strongest policy areas. But the poll suggests voters are weighing the war's price tag more heavily than the crime numbers.
Iran's attempts to assert dominance over the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil flows, have compounded the energy shock. Newsmax noted that Trump described Iran as "a very evil country" that could not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, casting even a modest price increase at the pump as acceptable. Yet only one in five Americans, and just half of Republicans, told pollsters the war has been worth the cost.
Perhaps the most damaging number in the survey is not the approval figure itself but the expectation baked into it. Eighty percent of respondents, including, the Washington Examiner reported, 71% of Republicans, believe the U.S. involvement in Iran will drag on for an extended period. Only 35% of Americans said they support the war at all.
That widespread pessimism cuts against the administration's early messaging. Trump initially signaled the campaign would wrap up quickly. Nearly six months in, the White House declined to comment on whether any target date for ending the conflict exists. When an administration will not even name a timeline, voters draw their own conclusions, and the poll reflects exactly that.
The situation in the Strait of Hormuz remains unresolved. Trump reportedly threatened to "bomb the s*** out of" Oman if the Gulf country "gets in the way" of negotiations to reopen the strategic waterway, rhetoric that may reassure hawks but does little to calm a public already bracing for a prolonged commitment.
Meanwhile, Trump has floated the idea of invoking a national security emergency tied to the midterm elections, a move that itself signals how seriously the White House views the political environment.
For years, Republicans held a comfortable lead when voters were asked which party they trusted more on the economy. That advantage has now evaporated. For the first time in roughly a decade, Democrats outpolled Republicans on economic stewardship, with 38% of respondents trusting Democrats versus 35% trusting Republicans.
Democrats have seized on both the war and the affordability crunch in their bid to retake the House and Senate in November. The party's candidates do not need to make an abstract argument about competence; they can point to the gas receipt. Rising prices and a war with no visible endpoint are the kind of kitchen-table issues that move persuadable voters, and the polling suggests they are moving.
The political fallout extends beyond the ballot. Senate Republicans have already blocked a fifth Democratic attempt to end the Iran campaign through legislation, a posture that keeps the party aligned with the White House but tethers every GOP incumbent to the war's trajectory. If conditions do not improve by November, that loyalty could become a liability.
Trump's endorsement power, long considered one of his greatest political assets, has also shown cracks. In Florida, Cory Mills lost a primary despite carrying Trump's backing, and in Georgia, a stinging loss earlier this year forced the president to hedge his bets in a subsequent South Carolina runoff. None of those outcomes alone define a trend, but together they suggest the president's brand carries less weight with primary voters than it did a year ago.
The White House response to the poll leaned on a familiar strategy: recite the wins. Wales listed middle-class tax cuts she called the largest in history, lower prescription drug costs, a sealed border, violent crime at its lowest level in nearly a century, an energy revolution, and record 401(k) balances. Each of those claims reflects a policy the administration considers a signature achievement.
But checklist governance has a shelf life. Voters who watched their 401(k)s climb last year are now watching gas prices climb this year. The border may be sealed, but the Strait of Hormuz is contested, and the economic ripple from that contest hits every American who drives to work. A strong record on crime does not offset a war that 80% of the country expects to grind on indefinitely.
The 33% figure is not just a bad poll. It is a data point that matches the worst moment of Trump's first term, December 2017, when the Russia investigation dominated headlines and the tax bill had not yet passed. That he has returned to the same floor under entirely different circumstances suggests the erosion is structural, not situational.
Some commentators have speculated about even more dramatic scenarios. James Carville recently predicted Trump would resign the presidency, a bet that says more about Carville's track record of misjudging this president than about any realistic outcome. Still, the prediction reflects a political atmosphere in which even allies acknowledge the headwinds are severe.
The White House did not offer a target date for ending the war. It did not explain how gas prices would come down while the Strait of Hormuz remains contested. And it did not address the fact that, for the first time in a decade, voters trust Democrats more on the economy than Republicans.
Wales said there is "more work to do." On that much, the poll agrees, though voters and the White House may have very different ideas about what that work looks like.
When the price of a policy shows up on every gas pump in America, no checklist of past wins can make voters look away. The midterms will measure whether this White House heard the message in time, or mistook a warning for background noise.