Trump's popularity in the US hits a 36-year low

A recent poll puts US President Donald Trump at his lowest approval rating for any president heading into a midterm in 36 years of the poll. Seven months of war with Iran and a petrol pump that refuses to behave explain much of the slide.

There is a particular kind of record a politician does not frame and hang on the wall. Donald Trump just set one. A new Wall Street Journal poll puts his approval at 37 per cent, with 61 per cent disapproving. According to the Journal, that is the lowest it has recorded for any president heading into a midterm election in polling going back to 1990. Americans vote on November 3. The runway is short, and the plane is losing altitude.

To understand the number, rewind to February 28, when the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran. Trump had returned to the White House promising to tame prices and avoid "stupid wars." Seven months on, he has a war with no visible exit and fuel prices that have gone the wrong way. Voters noticed both.

The weekly Reuters/Ipsos tracker reads like a fever chart. Trump opened his second term at 47 per cent. He was at 40 in mid-March; three weeks into the war he had slipped to 36. By mid-August he was at 33, matching the floor of his first term. On September 21 he hit 32, the lowest of his political career and below anything that pollster ever recorded for Joe Biden, whose worst was 35.

The war itself has lost the room. Reuters/Ipsos found support for US military action against Iran at 37 per cent in March and 31 per cent by late August, with 83 per cent expecting the conflict to drag on. So much for the quick win.

But the real wound is at the petrol pump. In March, 25 per cent approved of Trump's handling of the cost of living. By September, 17 per cent did. Early in the war he called higher costs a "very small price to pay"; he has since blamed oil companies and floated a $5,000 "dividend" if voters keep his party in charge of Congress. The price, it turns out, did not stay small.

The home front cracks

Here is what should worry the White House most. Democrats never liked him and independents drifted long ago. The fresh bleeding is from his own side. Republican approval of Trump fell from 82 to 73 per cent in a single week in September, per Reuters/Ipsos. For the first time this term, more Republicans disapprove of his cost-of-living record (51 per cent) than approve (44).

A fair caveat: pollsters do not agree on exactly how deep the hole is. American Research Group has him at 29 per cent; a Harvard CAPS/Harris survey of registered voters in early September had him at 44. The averages sit in between: Silver Bulletin at 37.6, FiftyPlusOne at 34.6. Different methods, different samples. The direction, though, is not in dispute. Silver Bulletin puts his net approval (approvals minus disapprovals) at a record low, against a comparatively gentle minus 11.6 at this stage in 2018.

Earlier this month, at a midterms convention, Trump urged supporters to "pretend I'm on the ballot." Voters appear to be doing exactly that.

Does it guarantee a wipeout? Not quite. Midterms are fought seat by seat, and Biden went into 2022 at 40 per cent in Gallup's polling yet lost only nine House seats. But Gallup's long record is blunt: since 1946, presidents under 50 per cent approval have watched their party lose an average of 37 House seats.