Harry Truman had held the record for the most unpopular president heading into a midterm election, and Donald Trump has taken it from him in four separate polls.
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten laid out that collapse on “CNN News Central” on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. President Donald Trump’s net approval rating has fallen to minus 35 in Reuters/Ipsos polling, the lowest of his presidency in that survey. In January 2025, the first month of his second term, the same poll had him at plus 6.
“This is a five-alarm Trumpster fire – that’s what we’re talking about,” Enten told John Berman, the program’s anchor. Among independent voters, Reuters/Ipsos puts the president at minus 54.
The Record That Truman Held
Enten displayed four October surveys taken ahead of the midterms: NBC at minus 32, ABC at minus 33, Reuters/Ipsos at minus 35 and the Pew Research Center at minus 38. Every one of them placed Trump below Truman, whose net approval reached minus 30 in the same stretch before a midterm — the previous worst on record.
Berman asked whether the numbers were an anomaly. Enten said they were not, and that the pattern has repeated poll after poll. He has also reported that Trump carries the highest “strongly disapprove” rating of any president going into a midterm.
The two closest historical parallels he could find were Truman and George W. Bush, each at minus 15 or lower around a midterm. In both cases the president’s party lost control of the House and the Senate. Historically, Enten said, an approval rating that low before a midterm has taken both chambers down with the president.
Vote Like I’m on the Ballot
On Oct. 9, Enten called the president’s numbers “laughably bad” after new Pew polling put his net approval 38 points underwater, a record low before a midterm. He said his search for a precedent ran back through Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt and turned up nothing close.
“No president I’ve ever seen is in a worse position before a midterm election than President Trump,” Enten said.
Pew was not alone. Reuters/Ipsos had Trump 33 points underwater at that point, an earlier Ipsos survey from the previous month had him at 34, CNN’s own poll showed 34, and an Associated Press poll matched Pew at 38. No other president before a midterm, Enten said, had even reached minus 31.
The steepest drop came among independents. Pew’s validated voter research found they split evenly between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. In the Oct. 9 segment, Enten put the president 57 points underwater with that group, and said he was struggling to find adjectives for the plunge.
Trump has urged supporters to “vote like I’m on the ballot.” Enten said Democrats are begging voters to do exactly that, because treating the midterms as a referendum on the president would all but guarantee Democrats win back the House. He added that Trump’s standing is why Democratic chances of capturing the Senate have kept climbing. “This president, as unpopular as he is, is dragging Republicans underwater,” Enten said.
The Private Doubts About Holding the House
White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast: “President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress.” Ingle said the choice facing voters has never been clearer between the president’s agenda and what he called the Democrats’ extreme liberal policies and obstruction.
Trump’s political fortunes have deteriorated since he launched his war with Iran in February 2026, driving up energy prices, with the economy and his handling of it near the top of voters’ concerns. Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 8 points in the RealClearPolling average. Several House districts the president carried by double digits in 2024 are now considered competitive.
Carlos Curbelo, the former Republican congressman who lost his competitive Florida seat during Trump’s first midterm elections in 2018, said the environment is about as tough as one could expect. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House—not in recent weeks, anyway,” Curbelo said.
