CNN host Kaitlan Collins turned to a graphic on Monday, August 31, 2026, and showed viewers of “The Source” exactly where President Donald Trump’s net approval sits: minus 32 percentage points, roughly 11 points worse than the minus 21 the Republican Party posted in the network’s own polling.
In nearly every poll the president trails by double digits, Collins said, and he is running behind his party as a whole. The gap carries real consequences, she argued, because Trump has made himself the main attraction of the fall campaign. His plan to stage a special Republican convention ahead of the November midterms is an unorthodox one, and it makes his record in office an implicit ballot question across hundreds of separate House and Senate races.
“Actually, some Republicans aren’t behind it because they think it’s taking them off the campaign trail,” Collins said of the convention plan. Journalist Maggie Haberman, who writes for the New York Times and comments for CNN, said candidates would be pulled out of their home districts by the gathering, which would also hand Democrats fresh footage for attack ads.
As of September 5, 2026, Trump has vowed to campaign personally in midterm races, with Republicans facing an increasingly competitive fight to hold Congress.
Back Down to a Career Low
The CNN poll behind that graphic pegged Trump’s overall approval at 34 percent, a tie with the worst mark of his career, set after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Strong disapproval reached 50 percent in the same survey, the highest of his two terms, while strong approval came in at 15 percent, also a record. A favorable view of the Republican Party with him at its head was expressed by just 31 percent. SSRS conducted the survey for CNN between July 23 and 27.
Private surveys, Haberman noted, do not always mirror what shows up in public data. “There is no polling where this president is popular,” Haberman said. Not a single poll, she added, puts him in the clear on affordability.
The word “affordability” was said over and over at the president’s Oval Office healthcare event that same day, Haberman noted, even though the issue is one Trump has brushed off as a hoax on multiple occasions. Anything but that, she said, is what Republicans in tough districts want to spend the fall talking about.
The risk deepens with the money behind the convention effort. Reporting published in late August said his MAGA Inc. super PAC is what Trump intends to draw on to fund a stretch of television spots promoting his own record, with the ads designed to run as a backdrop to those House and Senate races.
Other Pollsters See the Same Trend
The president’s political brand looks more and more like a drag on Republicans who are trying to protect narrow majorities in Congress on November 3. A Reuters/Ipsos survey of 924 registered voters nationwide, conducted August 28-31, put approval of how he is doing the job at 33 percent. The same survey found 46 percent of Democrats calling themselves very enthusiastic about voting in November; 31 percent of Republicans said the same.
Gallup’s latest quarterly data on party identification, reported September 5, 2026, handed Democrats their largest edge since 2008: 49 percent of voters identify with or lean Democratic, against 39 percent Republican. That 10-point gap is a swing from the four-point Republican advantage of the final quarter of 2024. The same report cites a New York Times polling average that now shows 38 percent approving of Trump’s job performance and 58 percent disapproving.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) offered no relief either. Its poll of 1,000 respondents, questioned August 21-26, put approval of the president’s job performance at 32 percent, down a point from the university’s March survey. Disapproving respondents made up 64 percent — close to two-thirds — and 54 percent said they disapproved strongly. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.
Foreign policy is dragging as well. Asked about the war with Iran, 68 percent of those polled by UMass said Trump is not handling it well, while 25 percent rated his handling somewhat or very good. Its seventh month is what the conflict is now entering — far longer than the roughly one month Trump predicted at the outset.
Vice President JD Vance led a White House press briefing on September 3, the first in more than 40 days, and Collins pressed him on that timeline. “In terms of the war and the timeline, given this administration has put timelines out there before… Will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections?” she asked. Vance replied, “Well, Kaitlan, I wouldn’t call it a war. Right now, there is no active shooting.”
Prices are causing him trouble too. Better than half of the UMass respondents said the president is not handling inflation well at all; 22 percent credited him with doing somewhat or very well. In July, annual inflation registered 3.7 percent on the personal consumption expenditures price index, the measure the Federal Reserve favors. That figure runs 1.2 points higher than the January 2025 reading, taken when Trump took office again on a promise to push down the cost of living.
How the White House Answered
The president’s own reply has come on Truth Social, where his target has been what he calls fake polls deployed by the press. Opponents cook up the bad numbers, he has argued for years, and this is one more airing of that claim. The day after that briefing, he posted on Truth Social: “The Radical Left Lunatics, Dumocrats, and Communists would rather have us LOSE the War in Iran, than have President Donald J. Trump WIN the War for America.”
His annoyance with Haberman has a long history. He unloaded on her in late August, mangling her name into a slur, after she and three colleagues reported that he intends to stay away from the ceremony at Ground Zero marking 25 years since the September 11 attacks. He had reportedly hoped to speak there, but the ceremony’s organizer, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, has not allowed speeches since 2012. The same reporting said he intends to be at the Irish Open that weekend.
The following night, Collins handed the September 1 broadcast of “The Source” over to the president’s all-in bet on data centers. Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed appeared live during the 46-minute episode, his ongoing quarrel with Vance having grown personal — one more sign that, with November 3 approaching, the campaign is playing out mostly on Trump’s terrain and, more and more, over his numbers.
