Despite a slight improvement in the polls for President Donald Trump, his approval rating continues to hover near record lows in a new survey released by The Economist/YouGov on Aug. 25.
The poll found that 36% of Americans approved of Trump’s performance, a 1 percentage point improvement from last week’s The Economist/YouGov poll.
Despite the president’s improvement in The Economist/YouGov’s tracking in recent weeks, Trump is still hovering within 3 percentage points of his lowest approval rating since his return to the White House in 2025 (33%).
Trump's slightly improving approval rating comes as the GOP continues to struggle against the Democrats in a generic congressional ballot. According to the newest poll, Democrats continue to hold an advantage
of 6 percentage points over Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Tuesday’s The Economist/YouGov poll was conducted Aug. 21-24 among 1,536 U.S. adults. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
More bad polling for Trump?
Tuesday’s The Economist/YouGov poll came only a day after the president got less-than-stellar news from the newest Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Aug. 24.
For the second week in a row, the poll found Trump’s approval rating sitting at 33%, the lowest approval rating the president has seen in Reuters/Ipsos tracking since his return to the White House in 2025. The numbers also tie Trump’s worst approval rating during his first term in office, in December 2017.
Aside from continuously bad polling numbers for the president, the Iran war remains an unpopular issue with Americans.
The same poll found that approval of the war on Iran, which is nearing its six-month mark, fell to its lowest level since the conflict's early days. According to Reuters/Ipsos, the poll found that only 31% of Americans approved of the conflict.
What do polling averages show?
While individual polls vary, major polling averages continue to show Trump in negative territory overall:
- RealClearPolitics (Aug. 25): 39.7% approve, 57% disapprove
- New York Times (Aug. 25): 38% approve, 58% disapprove
- Silver Bulletin (Aug. 25): 38.2% approve, 58.0% disapprove
USA TODAY’s Kinsey Crowley contributed to this report.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@usatodayco.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump approval rating still hovering near record lows, new poll shows
