Days before pivotal midterm elections, President Donald Trump's approval rating reached a new record low in Emerson College's latest poll.
The new poll, released Friday, Oct. 30, found Trump’s approval rating at 37%, the lowest the president has seen in Emerson College polling and a two-point drop from his previous low of 39%, which he saw in the pollsters' September, July, June and May surveys.
The president's new low in Emerson College polling comes as the midterm elections are only days away and Trump’s Republican Party continues to run far behind Democrats in the polls.
According to the same poll, Democrats lead Republicans by 10 percentage points in a generic congressional ballot, signaling that a big blue wave could be on the horizon in the coming
days.
“With about 5% still undecided, most of whom are independent and half disapprove of Trump, Democrats’ congressional ceiling could be higher than the poll reports,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
The Emerson College poll, conducted from Oct. 24 to Oct. 26, surveyed 1,000 likely voters. The poll's margin of error is 3 percentage points.
The bottom could still fall out for the GOP
With midterms on Tuesday, Nov. 3, new polling shows Democrats being competitive and even holding comfortable leads in deep-red states.
On Friday, Oct. 30, The Washington Post also released a new poll of the Kansas Senate race showing Democrat Adam Hamilton leading the incumbent Republican Roger Marshall by nine percentage points.
A potential win for Hamilton in Kansas could come in a state Trump carried by more than 16 percentage points in 2024's presidential election.
In Texas, Democrat James Talarico leads Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by six percentage points in a CNN/SSRS poll. A Talarico victory would mark the first statewide win by a Texas Democrat this century and the first since 1994.
Trump’s slide in the polling averages
Emerson College's poll isn't the only bad survey for Trump, as broader polling averages also show him sliding into deeper negative territory.
As of Friday, Oct. 30, the RealClearPolitics average showed Trump with a 38.4% approval rating and a 59.7% disapproval rating. The New York Times polling average had Trump at 37% approval and 60% disapproval, while Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin average showed 37.3% approval and 59.9% disapproval.
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 falls to new low in pre-midterms poll
