Story Highlights
- Only 33 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s economic management, a record low and three points below Biden’s worst mark
- 22 percent of Republicans now disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, with strong approval among Republicans dropping from 61 percent in April to 53 percent in June
- States where key 2026 midterm races will be decided paid over $134 billion in tariffs from March 2025 through last November, according to a new CNBC analysis
What Happened
The NPR/PBS News/Marist survey, conducted June 8 through 11 with 1,340 respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, delivered a stark warning to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Thirty-three percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, down three points from the worst figure ever recorded for former President Joe Biden during his term. The erosion is cutting across demographic groups that were essential to Trump’s 2024 victory.
Among independent voters, 64 percent disapprove or strongly disapprove of Trump’s performance, matching April’s survey. Disapproval among Latino voters has climbed roughly 16 points since Trump’s second-term inauguration, while disapproval among African Americans has risen approximately 11 points. Even within the Republican base, the share of voters who strongly approve of Trump’s job performance dropped from 61 percent in April to 53 percent in June. In rural America, Trump moved from a net positive approval of 22 points in February 2025 to being 10 points underwater with the same demographic.
The poll’s findings align with a separate CNBC All-America Economic Survey showing 60 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump’s economic management in the first quarter of 2026. Small business owners interviewed across the country have described being forced to halt expansion plans, close locations, or raise prices due to the combined pressures of tariffs on imported goods and the spillover effects of the Iran war on fuel costs.
Regina Kulenga, a 36-year-old Trump voter in Georgia, encapsulated the frustration of many supporters interviewed for the NPR reporting. She told the outlet she was uncertain whether she would vote in the midterms, describing Trump’s economic record as “a slap in the face” and saying she felt “he’s not doing anything right now for the economy but making things, I feel, in my opinion, a lot worse than what they were.”
Republican critics within the party have grown more vocal. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican retiring at the end of his term, described the situation bluntly: “There’s some self-inflicted wounds that were so unnecessary.” Senator Thom Tillis and others have pointed specifically to tariffs and the economic disruption from the Iran conflict as avoidable political liabilities that the White House has failed to address with sufficient urgency.
Why It Matters
The political stakes of these numbers could not be higher. Democrats need a net gain of seats to retake control of the House and Senate, and economic dissatisfaction is the historically dominant driver of midterm outcomes when an incumbent party is in the White House. Trump’s advisers appear acutely aware of this dynamic, yet the president has repeatedly dismissed public concern about affordability as a Democratic “hoax” and given himself an “A-plus plus” on the economy — a posture that political operatives from both parties say is deepening the credibility problem.
For Republican incumbents in competitive districts, the arithmetic is becoming uncomfortable. Cook Political Report’s polling tracker shows Trump’s net approval among white, non-college voters — a demographic central to the Republican electoral coalition — collapsed from a 13-point positive margin at the same point last year to a slim 3.5-point edge. If that drift continues or accelerates through November, seats that were previously safe could come into play for Democratic challengers.
The gas price dimension deserves particular attention. Analysts have noted that gasoline prices represent the most direct and psychologically immediate channel through which the costs of the Iran war reach ordinary voters. Every fill-up is a tangible reminder of elevated wartime prices, and administration officials’ repeated assurances that prices will fall “in a few more weeks” have been compared by Democratic strategists to the Biden Treasury’s dismissal of inflation as “transitory” in 2021 — a framing that proved politically devastating.
The broader erosion of confidence among Trump’s core supporters — rural voters, working-class whites, Latinos who shifted toward the GOP in 2024 — reflects a structural challenge. These groups were persuaded to support Trump in part on economic promises, and their disillusionment carries particular weight because their participation in November is not guaranteed if enthusiasm has collapsed.
Economic and Global Context
The macroeconomic picture reinforces the polling data. From March 2025, when the Trump administration began implementing sweeping tariffs, through last November, tariff costs paid across U.S. states reached a cumulative $200 billion, according to CNBC’s analysis of U.S. Census data. States where key 2026 midterm races will be contested paid more than $134 billion of that total — a direct illustration of how trade policy has concentrated its costs in the most electorally competitive parts of the country.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump, which struck down the president’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as a basis for sweeping tariff authority, added a new dimension of uncertainty. Trump responded by imposing a new 10 percent global tariff under a separate legal authority, restarting a 150-day clock and guaranteeing that trade policy will remain a live economic and political issue through the end of the year. Goldman Sachs analysts project the effective tariff rate will decline by approximately two percentage points by the end of 2026, providing some relief but not enough to reverse the cumulative price impacts voters have already absorbed.
Oil prices, though down from wartime peaks above $100 per barrel, remain elevated enough to sustain voter anxiety. Brent crude settled around $80 per barrel before the latest turbulence in the Switzerland negotiations pushed it back above $81 on Sunday. With summer driving season underway, any renewed disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz would quickly translate into price spikes at the pump.
Implications
Democrats are approaching November with cautious optimism, though they face significant headwinds of their own. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin has hammered the affordability theme relentlessly, arguing that Republicans have failed to deliver on the central promise of Trump’s comeback campaign. Prediction markets have consistently assigned Democrats better-than-even odds of retaking the House majority, though the Senate map remains more favorable to Republicans.
Trump’s willingness to adapt his economic message before November is a central variable. His instinct to dismiss economic pain as politically motivated complaint has insulated him personally but is creating serious down-ballot problems for incumbents who must defend their own records to constituents who are shopping in real stores and filling tanks at real gas stations. The pressure to reach a durable Iran peace deal, extend tax cuts, and reduce the visible economic burden on households before Election Day is intensifying inside the Republican caucus.
For businesses, the uncertainty itself carries a cost. Investment in long-cycle manufacturing, real estate, and consumer goods has been suppressed by the unpredictability of tariff policy. The inability to model costs 12 to 18 months out has prompted some companies to defer hiring, delay expansion, and build larger cash reserves — all behaviors that slow economic growth and dampen the kind of labor market headline numbers that could help the administration’s political standing.
The midterm elections will ultimately be a referendum on whether Trump’s economic record — the promises he made, the policies he enacted, and the trade-offs ordinary Americans have absorbed — matches what voters expected when they returned him to office in 2024.
Sources
“Poll: Most Americans have the summer blues about Trump and the economy”
