Trump has lowest 100-day approval rating in 80 years: POLL

Donald Trump has the lowest 100-day job approval rating of any president in the past 80 years, with public pushback on many of his policies and extensive economic discontent, including broad fears of a recession, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.

Yet he still beats the Democrats in Congress in terms of trust to handle the nation’s main problems.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents in this ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll said they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, down 6 percentage points from February, while 55% said they disapprove.

The previous low in approval for a president at or near 100 days in office, in polls dating to 1945, was Trump’s 42% in 2017.

Perhaps most threatening to Trump, given his promise of an economic turnaround, is the extent of negative views on the economy: Seventy-two percent said they think it’s very or somewhat likely that his economic policies will cause a recession in the short term.

Seventy-three percent said the economy is in bad shape, 53% said it’s gotten worse since Trump took office and 41% said their own finances have worsened — which is as many as those who said so under President Joe Biden last summer.

Sixty-two percent said prices, which as a candidate, Trump pledged to curb, are rising. Seventy-one percent said they see his tariffs as a negative factor in price inflation. And just 31% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos, said they accept Trump’s argument that the economy will emerge with a stronger foundation for the long term.

Negative assessments go beyond the economy. Sixty-five percent said Trump’s administration is trying to avoid complying with federal court orders, and 64% said he’s going too far in trying to expand presidential powers.

Sixty-two percent said they don’t think his administration respects the rule of law.

Majorities also expressed concern that the president will do too much to reduce the size and role of government (58%), argued he’s acted beyond his authority as president without justification (56%) and doubted the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting citizens’ rights and freedoms (55%).

See PDF for full results.

Anywhere from 57% to 67% of Americans said they disapprove of Trump’s performance on six of seven issues tested in this survey, including at least 6 in 10 on his handling of stock market volatility, tariffs, foreign relations and the economy overall.

Fewer, 53%, said they disapprove of his handling of immigration.

Six in 10 or more said they oppose various administration initiatives, peaking at 77% opposed to cuts in federal funding for medical research.

Seventy percent were opposed to increasing the federal government’s role in how private universities are run, 67% were opposed to ending birthright citizenship and 66% were opposed to closing the Department of Education.

As reported Friday, opposition to deporting immigrants is lower, 51%. Additionally, on university governance, the public sided with Harvard University over the Trump administration in their dispute, 66%-32%.

In another gauge, 57% said Trump is “going too far” in closing federal agencies, and it’s about the same, 56%, in both laying off federal employees and in taking action against his political opponents.

This eases to about half on ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, reflecting the public’s divide on whether DEI efforts help level the playing field (51%) or create unfair discrimination (47%).

In a positive for the president, more people said they believe waste throughout the federal government has decreased rather than increased under Trump, 43%-25%. The rest said it’s stayed the same.

That doesn’t carry over in perceptions of fraud: Thirty-four percent said they think this has increased, while 32% said it has decreased.

Another question, raised by Trump’s comprehensive efforts to reshape the government, found that 49% think the president is moving the country away from its founding principles, while 34% think he’s moving it closer toward them. Seventeen percent said they don’t think he’s moving it either way.

Approval

At 39%, Trump’s job approval rating is down from 45% in a Washington Post/Ipsos poll in February. It now almost exactly matches his average, 40%, across his first term — tied with Biden for the lowest presidential career average available, dating back to President Harry Truman.

Notably, just 21% now said they “strongly” approve of Trump’s work in office, his lowest percentage on record. About twice as many, 44%, said they strongly disapprove.

Trump’s approval rating from non-college-educated white men, a core support group, is 54%, tying his low in this group from his first term.

That may reflect that 43% of non-college-educated white men said the nation’s economy has worsened under Trump, and a third said they have gotten less well off financially since he’s taken office.

Trump is also tied with his previous lows in approval among Democrats and liberals.

Still, Trump is hanging on to the vast bulk of his voters.

Among people who voted for him in November, just 6% said they now regret it, while 94% said it was the right thing to do. (Buyer’s regret was even lower, 2%, at this point in his first term, a 4-point swing.)

In another gauge of partisanship, 83% of Republicans said they approve of Trump’s work in office, while 93% of Democrats and 60% of independents said they disapprove.

A difference is that 51% of Republicans strongly approve of Trump, while 85% of Democrats strongly disapprove. So do 44% of independents, three times as many as those who strongly approve.

Trump’s ratings on individual issues, absent immigration, are also underwater.

Sixty-seven percent said they disapprove of his handling of the recent turmoil in the stock market.

The S&P 500 is down 8.7% since Trump took office.

On tariffs, 64% said they disapprove; on both the economy overall and U.S. relations with other countries, 61% said they disapprove; on looking out for the interests of average Americans, 58% said they disapprove; and on managing the federal government, 57% said they disapprove.

The opposition

The silver lining for Trump is that the opposition party remains out of favor.

People said they trust him over the Democrats in Congress to handle the nation’s main problems by 37%-30%. Underscoring bipartisan disaffection, 30% said they don’t trust either party.

Further, while 60% said Trump is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the country, even more, 69%, said the Democratic Party is out of touch. It’s 64% for the Republican Party overall.

There are some telling partisan gaps.

In the political middle, 62% of independents said Trump is out of touch, while substantially more, 76%, said the Democratic Party is out of touch. And in their own camps, relatively few Republicans said Trump is out of touch, 19%, while twice as many Democrats, 38%, said this about their own party.

At the same time, more people said both parties should be doing more to oppose Trump rather than more to support him — the Democratic Party by 46%-38% and the Republican Party by 50%-26%, with the rest saying each party is handling this about right.

In both cases, independents help tip the balance to opposing versus supporting Trump.

Courts and Compliance

In terms of the legal battles over Trump’s moves, people widely rejected the administration’s accusations of improper judicial interference.

Most, 62%-35%, said federal judges are trying to enforce existing limits on Trump’s legal authority rather than trying to interfere with his authority.

An even wider margin of people, 67%-31%, said federal judges should have the authority to block an administration policy until a trial is held if they think it will harm people and is probably illegal.

Further, people said by a margin of 67%-31% that they think the Trump administration is trying to avoid complying with court orders regarding its activities rather than trying to comply with those orders.

Cutting government

Majority perceptions of presidential overreach are common.

As mentioned, 58% said they express concern that Trump will do too much to reduce the size and role of the federal government. That’s essentially a mirror of attitudes under Biden: Fifty-nine percent said they were concerned he’d do too much to increase the government’s size and role.

The difference is in partisan divisions, reflecting sharply different views of government between Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents on one hand and Republicans and Republican-leaning independents on the other.

In the Democratic group, 91% said they are concerned Trump will do too much to shrink the size and role of government, while 26% in the Republican group said the same.

In 2021, by contrast, 87% in the GOP camp said they were concerned that Biden would go too far to increase the government’s size and role, while 31% in the Democratic group said so.

Views on the Trump administration cutting federal regulations are more closely divided.

Fifty-two percent said they think it will cut regulations that are needed to protect public health and safety, while 46% instead said they think it will cut unnecessary regulations while keeping those that are needed.

Foreign relations and Russia

In the last area covered by this survey, respondents by 49%-34% said they think Trump has weakened rather than strengthened U.S. leadership in the world.

While still negative, that’s better than Biden’s 48%-23% result on the same question in 2022.

Regarding Russia, 46% said Trump’s approach is too friendly, while 11% said it’s too confrontational and 40% said it’s about right. That’s similar to what it was in a January 2017 poll.

This survey was completed before the administration’s move in the past week, pressuring Ukraine to accept a ceasefire deal favorable to Russia.

Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® April 18-22, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,464 adults. Partisan divisions are 30%-30%-29%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos.

See details on ABC News survey methodology here.