Trump approval is worst ever in new poll

Summary

Podcast Summary: Trump Approval Is Worst Ever In New Poll

Podcast: The NPR Politics Podcast
Date: May 6, 2026
Hosts: Ashley Lopez, Stephen Fowler, Domenico Montanaro

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Overview

This episode analyzes the results from recent Indiana and Ohio primaries, focusing on the enduring grip former President Trump has over Republican politics despite a new poll revealing his lowest-ever national approval rating. The hosts discuss not only how Trump’s influence shaped state-level races and party strategies but also how economic concerns are affecting his standing with voters—including his own base. They conclude with broader themes about party control, redistricting, and upcoming electoral dynamics across the country.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Indiana Primaries: Trump’s Influence on GOP Politics

[00:33 – 04:03]

• Trump’s targeted campaign: Trump and affiliated groups spent millions to defeat state senators who refused to support redistricting favored by him.

  • “There were seven incumbent state senators on the ballot. Five of them handily lost. One of them narrowly survived.” — Stephen Fowler [00:57]
  • “Donald Trump, big winner, big success...this was clearly an effort to go in there and try to punish these folks...to be able to say he's the big dog in the party still and that he's gonn[a] call the shots here.” — Domenico Montanaro [03:14]

• Anti-incumbent sentiment: Beyond Trump, there’s a notable anti-incumbent mood; many sitting lawmakers barely held off challengers—sometimes those with virtually no campaign resources.

  • “You could say there’s something in the water where voters of both parties are interested in something else, even if that something else doesn’t manifest in the upset oustings…” — Stephen Fowler [01:47]

• Impact for legislators: The outcome illustrates why GOP officials rarely cross Trump—those who have, like pro-impeachment Republicans, often lose re-election or retire.

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2. Trump’s Plummeting Approval and Its Drivers

[04:03 – 07:40]

• Most negative poll rating ever: NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows Trump’s approval at 37%—its lowest since they began polling him—while 59% disapprove; 51% “strongly disapprove.”

  • “He has his worst approval rating in the NPR PBS News Marist Poll...37% approve...59% disapprove. 51%...strongly disapprove.” — Domenico Montanaro [04:26]

• Economic malaise: 63% say the economy isn’t working well for them—a sharp reversal from pre-pandemic sentiment when two-thirds were satisfied.

  • “That number is the worst that we've seen in the poll. And there appears to be really a Covid economic hangover here.” — Domenico Montanaro [05:10]

• Gas prices and affordability: High gas prices strain budgets, and a majority blame Trump for rising costs.

  • “Eight in ten say that gas prices are putting a strain on their budgets and their overall majority blaming Trump.” — Domenico Montanaro [05:10]

• Erosion within the base: Key groups—rural voters, whites without college degrees, parents, men, Southerners—have shifted from pro-Trump to negative in net approval since 2025.

  • “Now, all negative.” — Domenico Montanaro [06:25]

• Potential turnout effects: The drop in favorability could mean lower GOP turnout in upcoming midterms, not a direct shift to Democrats.

  • “That favorability cliff...might mean...there are just fewer Republican voters.” — Stephen Fowler [07:04]

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3. Ohio Primaries: Democratic Engagement & Congressional Redistricting

[09:01 – 10:29]

• Low drama, but key redistricting: No competitive top-ticket races but increased interest in congressional races, partly due to new, more competitive districts.

  • “Some of those districts were made a little bit more competitive...So there were a lot of people interested in sorting out those primary candidates.” — Stephen Fowler [09:08]

• Democratic energy: More Democrats than Republicans voted in seven of Ohio’s congressional districts—a sign of possible momentum in reach races.

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4. Voter Enthusiasm and the Key 2026 Midterm Question

[10:29 – 12:30]

• Democrats have the edge: Polls show Democrats up 10 points on the generic congressional ballot and 8 points in voter enthusiasm.

  • “Democrats have a 10 point advantage...61% of Democrats, only 53% of Republicans say that they're very enthusiastic about November's elections.” — Domenico Montanaro [10:38]

• Turnout gaps: Despite the advantage, youth and minority enthusiasm lags; whites with college degrees strongly favor Democrats.

• GOP challenge: Only 47% of Trump voters are “very enthusiastic” about voting, compared to 61% for Harris voters, hinting at Republican turnout issues when Trump is not directly on the ballot.

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5. Trump’s Continued Kingmaker Status & Party Control Over Primaries

[12:30 – 16:05]

• Ohio and beyond: Trump’s early endorsements—such as for Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio—often clear the field, reducing intra-party competition.

  • “Trump endorsing earlier than ever in primary contests and playing kingmaker and really going all in on incumbents so that there's no chance for any upset that he doesn't want to happen.” — Stephen Fowler [12:40]

• Redistricting as power play: Southern states scramble to redraw maps, fearing Trump-backed retribution.

  • “Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of millions of dollars in attack ads saying that you're not conservative enough and you lose a primary.” — Stephen Fowler [13:35]

• Closed primaries and strategic maneuvering: Louisiana shifting to closed primaries, targeting anti-Trump Republicans.

• Kentucky example: Trump intervenes in the Kentucky Senate primary, offering endorsements and negotiating candidate exits.

• Few anti-Trump voices remain: Independent Republican voices like Rand Paul or Thomas Massie are increasingly rare as safe partisan districts reduce incentives to moderate.

  • “That sort of independence from Trump has been few and far between. And certainly it's been certainly weeded out over the past five or six years.” — Domenico Montanaro [15:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump’s dominance in primaries:
  “This was clearly an effort to go in there and try to punish these folks, to be able to say he's the big dog in the party still and that he's gonn[a] call the shots here.”
  — Domenico Montanaro [03:14]

• On Trump’s historic low approval:
  “He has his worst approval rating...37% approve of the job that Trump is doing. But 59% disapprove. 51% of people strongly disapprove. So the intensity of opposition...is very, very high.”
  — Domenico Montanaro [04:26]

• On the economy’s effect:
  “Pre-Covid in February 2020...two thirds said that the economy was working well for them. It's just not the case anymore.”
  — Domenico Montanaro [05:10]

• On power of primaries:
  “As lawmakers are, especially in the south, weighing redistricting, I do wonder if they are looking at Indiana, maybe not Ohio, but looking at those races and thinking like, oh, well, this is now part of my calculus.”
  — Ashley Lopez [13:11]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 00:33: Indiana primaries and Trump’s impact
• 03:14: Why Republican officials rarely challenge Trump
• 04:26: Trump’s all-time low approval in NPR/PBS poll
• 05:10: Economic anxieties and political blame-shifting
• 06:25: GOP base erosion—groups turning against Trump
• 07:04: Potential impact of low Trump favorability on turnout
• 09:01: Ohio congressional races and redistricting implications
• 10:38: Enthusiasm and congressional ballot polling
• 12:40: Nationalization of primaries and Trump's kingmaker role
• 13:35: Nationwide redistricting, party strategies, and Trump’s power

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Conclusion

This episode offers a deep dive into the GOP’s internal dynamics post-Trump presidency, the stark difference between primary and general electorate attitudes, and the growing importance of redistricting and enthusiasm in shaping the 2026 elections. Despite Trump’s dominance over Republican primaries, his national standing is at its lowest, largely due to economic frustration and shifting voter coalitions—creating significant challenges and opportunities for both parties as the next phase of the campaign unfolds.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[C]

I'm Steven Fowler. I also cover politics.

[D]

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

[B]

Today on the podcast, we're going to talk about election results from Indiana and Ohio and what voters are telling us about how they are feeling about Trump and the economy. Stephen, I want to start with Indiana. Last week on the podcast, we talked about how President Trump was trying to punish state senators who voted against redrawing the state's congressional districts by backing primary challengers for them. Can you tell us what happened in those races?

[C]

By and large, those incumbents were punished. There were seven incumbent state senators on the ballot. Five of them handily lost. One of them narrowly survived. There's a race that is too close to call where the two candidates are separated by about three votes. So if you're looking at this in the big picture, Donald Trump, big winner, big success. If you're looking at what it means for the Indiana state Senate, Senate fundamentally, those candidates don't really have much of a different perspective on policy than the ones who were ousted. But save the question of redistricting and what Trump says.

[B]

I mean, were voters simply just punishing these lawmakers who decided not to redistrict, or do you think something else was going on here?

[C]

It is impossible to know in the thousands of people that voted each of these primary races whether it was strictly punishment or about something else. I mean, the millions of dollars of TV ads that were spent weren't explicitly saying this guy did not vote for redistricting. That's why you should vote me in. It's the typical primary fare of who's the most conservative and who's going to do the best to stop the woke agenda in deep red Indiana and so on and so forth. So it's it's a little bit of a philosophical question that I'm not sure you can have the answer with. We do know, looking at the rest of Indiana's primary results, that there was a bit of an anti incumbent vibe going on. Some of the House incumbents didn't have primary challengers, but for the ones that did, Ashley, most of them actually ended up giving away a sizable number of votes to those primary challengers including in one race where incumbent Jefferson Shreve won by just six to an opponent he outraised 104 to one. And there was another race where the incumbent gave up a lot of votes to somebody who literally didn't file a campaign finance report. So you could say there's something in the water where voters of both parties are interested in something else, even if that something else doesn't manifest in the upset oustings that we saw with those particular Senate races.

[D]

I don't know that we've ever spent so much time talking about state Senate races on this podcast. And I think part of that is because of the millions of dollars that Trump decided and Trump affiliated groups decided to spend on this election to kind of get back at these folks who did not go along with what Trump wanted. He wanted them to redistrict, wanted to get more seats out of the state. And this was clearly an effort to go in there and try to punish these folks, to be able to say he's the big dog in the party still and that he's gonn the shots here. And clearly that's still the case. And it's why a lot of Republican elected officials simply don't want to cross Trump and go out there. Because we saw even the people who voted for Trump's impeachment, you saw the vast majority of them are no longer in Congress.

[B]

I mean, yeah, looking at Indiana's primary results, you can see how much power Trump still has in the Republican base. But I mean, Domenico, we do have a new NPR PBS News Marist poll that does paint a different picture about what his favorability is looking like, writ large. Like, when you're looking beyond just base Republican voters. What did you find?

[D]

Yeah, primaries are not general elections and they're not the country overall. And this has been the case for a long time with Trump. It continues to be the case. Now, he has his worst approval rating in the NPR PBS News Marist Poll since we started asking about Trump when he got into elected office the first time around. 37% approve of the job that Trump is doing. But 50%, 59% disapprove. 51% of people strongly disapprove. So the intensity of opposition that's waiting for a lot of these Republican candidates in a general election is very, very high.

[B]

Okay, so Domenico, obviously, like, voters are becoming increasingly unhappy with Trump. Like, what is driving that? Like, where's that coming from?

[D]

Well, clearly the economy is a top concern. I mean, it's been the top concern for voters for A long time, even back into the Biden administration. I mean, we see in our survey, 63% say that the economy is just not working well for them personally. And I found it really interesting because that number is the worst that we've seen in the poll. And there appears to be really a Covid economic hangover here, because Pre Covid in February 2020, when we asked about this, two thirds said that the economy was working well for them. It's just not the case anymore. You know, prices, supply chain issues just really haven't recovered. Six in ten say that their area is not affordable for regular families. So when you look at numbers like that, and then when gas price are as high as they are, and 8 in 10 say that gas prices are putting a strain on their budgets and their overall majority blaming Trump for the increase in those gas prices, you know, it's not too hard to draw a couple lines to connect the dots to see what's causing Trump's decline here.

[B]

I mean, 63% would also tell me that there are some Republicans who are unhappy with the economy. I mean, what do we know about how Republicans are feeling? I mean, I assume that they're feeling overall happy with the, with the President's performance, but, like, maybe when we get into issues, it's a little different.

[D]

Well, 80% of Republicans approve of the job that he's doing. It's a little bit softer than where he was when he started his second term. Overall, though, when you look at the net approval From February of 2025 to now, there are really key groups that have dropped off significantly. You're talking about people like rural voters, whites without college degrees, parents of children under 18, men overall, adults in the south, men who live in small cities and suburban areas, whites without college degrees, both men and women. These are groups that all approved of the job more than disapproved of the job that Trump was doing in February of 2025. Now, all negative.

[C]

And when you look at that favorability cratering that happened, it gets to one of the things that I think about in the midterms that's going to be hard to track until we get the general election in November. And that's the people that show up for President Trump in 2024. They vote for Republicans, and then this go around in the midterms, they stay home and sit on the couch. You know, that favorability cliff that we're talking about doesn't necessarily mean those people will then flip to the Democratic Party, but it might mean in key places and races that there are just fewer Republican voters, right?

[B]

All right. We're going to take a quick break. More in a moment.

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[B]

And we're back. And Stephen, we already talked about Indiana, but I want to know what happened in Ohio. This was the other state with primaries yesterday.

[C]

Well, there's a U.S. senate race that you may have heard about and an open governor's race you may have heard about. But the primary didn't really have anything interesting going on because incumbent Senator John Husted did not face a primary challenger on the Republican side. And in the governor's race, Democrat Amy Acton, the former state health director, didn't have a primary challenger. And the two that did, Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, only had nominal challengers. So there wasn't a lot of drama or a lot of intrigue there at the top of the ticket. But still, you had a number of people showing up to the polls. The more relevant portion comes with Ohio's congressional districts. There's 10 Republicans, five Democrats. Some of those districts were made a little bit more competitive in a recent round of redistricting ordered by state law. So there were a lot of people interested in sorting out those primary candidates. It is notable that even though there are 10 Republicans and five Democrats in Ohio's delegation right now, that there were actually more Democrats who voted in seven of those districts, in part because there are some of those sort of reach races that the party Hopes that they can flip in this midterm environment.

[B]

Domenico, we do have from the polling some numbers on voter enthusiasm. I mean, from what you saw, is this sort of not surprising when you look at what happened in Ohio?

[D]

Well, clearly Democrats have been overperforming in special election after special election, regular elections, we're seeing more Democrats show up than not. And it's why in our poll we continue to see Democrats with an edge on what's known as the congressional ballot test. When we ask people who they would vote for if elections were held today, a Democrat or Republican in their district, Democrats have a 10 point advantage on that question. It's a pretty big number. And in most years that would be seen as wave territory numbers. It's a little different this time around because there are just so many fewer competitive seats that it's not clear. Plus, there are some enthusiasm caveats I think Democrats should look at. Because when you ask who's very enthusiastic about November's elections, Democrats have the edge here. I mean, no doubt about it, they have an eight point advantage. 61% of Democrats, only 53% of Republicans say that they're very enthusiastic about November's elections. But when you look at groups that are important to Democrats, voters 18 to 29, black voters, Latinos, they're among the lowest who say that they have the highest enthusiasm. But Democrats do have advantages when it comes to whites with college degrees who have trended more in their direction. And they're among the highest to say that they want to vote. And that caveat also on the Republican side that Stephen was talking about earlier about Trump voters and the ability for Republicans to be able to turn Trump voters out in elections when Trump is not on the ballot. Just 47% of Trump voters say that they are very enthusiastic about voting compared to 61% of those who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris. So clearly an edge for Democrats here six months out from the election. But some warning signs for both parties.

[B]

Yeah. I am curious if Trump played a role in Ohio's primaries like he did in Indiana. I mean, did he say anything about candidates there weigh in on those races?

[C]

Well, one of the reason there was little drama on the Republican side is because Trump endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy last year in November, very early, essentially clearing the field for anybody else wanting to throw their hat in the ring. And it's part of a larger pattern of Trump endorsing earlier than ever in primary contests and playing kingmaker and really going all in on incumbents so that there's no chance for any upset that he doesn't want to happen.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just so interesting how primaries, especially as they become less competitive, how much power parties can wield in deciding who gets to stay or who gets to come in. And as lawmakers are, especially in the south, weighing redistricting, I do wonder if they are looking at Indiana, maybe not Ohio, but looking at those races and thinking like, oh, well, this is now part of my calculus.

[C]

Well, if you look at South Carolina, which is in the process of trying to finish its regular business and adjourn, there's now a scramble to rewrite the signee diadement resolution to leave the door open to redistrict after they've left. Today, Tennessee Republicans released their maps to have a completely Republican House delegation. And you've kind have seen this last minute scramble from Republicans in part because of the court ruling, the Supreme Court ruling. But at the same time, nobody wants to be on the receiving end of millions of dollars in attack ads saying that you're not conservative enough and you lose a primary to somebody else.

[B]

Well, there are some other tests that could be coming down. I'm thinking Louisiana, which is moving from open primaries for the past 50 years to now closed party primaries, ostensibly to get rid Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump.

[C]

Well, and as another case in point for Kentucky's Senate primary, you just had Trump weigh in with an endorsement for one candidate that also came with a job offer for another one to drop out. And so it is very much Trump's Republican Party, especially when it comes to the primary electorate. And as Domenico noted, there is some softening in support among Republicans and Trump's base, which is a silver lining for Republicans until you consider the general election and the negative environment that Republicans are facing and everybody but that loyal base saying, hey, we kind of don't like where things are going right now.

[D]

Yeah, I'm really interested to see what happens in both Kentucky and Louisiana when it comes to, in particular in Kentucky, Thomas Massie and someone like Rand Paul, who has certainly his own independent streak, said that he's gonna be campaigning hard with Massie, that he has the right to speak out as he does. But really that sort of independence from Trump has been few and far between. And certainly it's been certainly weeded out over the past five or six years where you have way fewer Republicans likely to speak out and a lot more red and a lot more blue, very blue and very red districts so that the incentive is not to cross the president to appeal to swing voters, but to appeal to the base.

[B]

Yeah, lots to watch. More interesting primaries on the way. All right. Let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[C]

I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover politics.

[D]

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

[B]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

[E]

Each story you hear on Planet Money starts with a what happens if we refund tariffs? Why are groceries so expensive? At npr, we stand for your right to be curious because the forces shaping our world can be hard to see. Follow NPR's Planet Money wherever you get your podcasts and start seeing how the economy really works.