CNN data analyst Harry Enten marked a grim milestone for President Donald Trump on Wednesday: exactly one full year of negative approval ratings.
On the March 11, 2026 broadcast of CNN News Central, anchor John Berman and Enten examined new data showing Trump has been underwater in polling averages for 365 consecutive days. The segment marked an unwelcome anniversary for the White House as Trump navigates mounting political headwinds ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“Every day since March 12th, 2025, President Trump has been underwater,” Enten declared, displaying his aggregate polling data. He colorfully described the president’s predicament: “Trump has been swimming with the fishes for a year.”
The numbers paint a stark picture for Republicans. According to Enten’s analysis, Trump’s net approval rating with independent voters has cratered to -38 points — worse than either George W. Bush at -26 points or Barack Obama at -18 points at the same point in their second terms. Enten called Trump’s standing with this crucial voting bloc “downright awful.”
A Fox News poll cited during the segment revealed that 60 percent of Americans overall believe the Trump administration is focused on the wrong things. Among independents, that figure climbs to 78 percent. The veteran data journalist did not mince words about the political implications: “That’s a big frickin’ problem!”
Wednesday’s analysis follows a pattern of polling breakdowns Enten has conducted throughout Trump’s second term. In November 2025, he examined Trump’s approval alongside correspondent Elex Michaelson, exploring how voters viewed the president’s handling of tariffs and economic issues. At that time, Trump’s approval among independents had already plummeted from -4 points in January to -43 points in November — a collapse Enten described as politically fatal.
The president’s legislative centerpiece has also struggled to win public support. When Enten analyzed polling on Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” in June 2025, he found net approval ratings ranging from -19 to -29 points across multiple surveys. Trump signed the sweeping tax and spending legislation on July 4, 2025, with Vice President JD Vance casting a tie-breaking Senate vote to secure its passage 51-50.
Vance has maintained a highly visible role throughout the administration. The vice president, who previously served as an Ohio senator from 2023 to 2025, has emerged as Trump’s chief defender and policy translator. He also became the first sitting vice president to serve as Republican National Committee finance chairman, taking on crucial fundraising responsibilities ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The political stakes could hardly be higher. Enten noted that prediction markets now give Democrats a 46 percent chance of taking back both the House and Senate — up from just 21 percent at the start of 2026. Democrats hold an 84 percent chance of reclaiming the House alone. Such an outcome would dramatically reshape the final two years of Trump’s presidency.
Not all polling news has been negative for Trump. He maintains sky-high support within his own party — 86 percent of Republicans approve of his job performance, the highest own-party approval of any 21st-century president at this point in a second term. Bush and Obama both sat at 77 percent. More than half of Republicans say they “strongly approve” of Trump, a majority neither of his predecessors achieved.
Trump’s foreign policy numbers have also provided a bright spot. Enten reported in November that Trump’s 43 percent foreign policy approval rating exceeded both Bush and Obama at this stage of their second terms, driven largely by his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
But the overall trajectory remains troubling for Republicans. In February 2026, ahead of Trump’s State of the Union address, Enten reported the president’s net approval had sunk to -27 points — the worst pre-State of the Union rating of Trump’s career. His previous lows were -15 points in both 2018 and 2019.
For CNN, the ongoing polling coverage reflects its investment in data-driven political journalism. Enten, promoted to Chief Data Analyst in February 2025, has become the network’s authoritative voice on electoral trends. His regular appearances translating complex survey data into television-friendly analysis have made him a fixture of CNN News Central’s morning programming.
As Trump passes the one-year mark of continuous negative approval ratings, the question facing Republicans is whether the trend will hold through November. If it does, Enten’s analysis suggests the midterms could prove devastating for the president’s party — transforming what Trump dubbed his “big beautiful bill” into, as Enten put it, “a big, beautiful night” for Democrats.
