
Amid headlines about racist tweets, trade wars and hurricane maps, President Trump’s approval rating has dipped slightly since the middle of July. On Tuesday, it stood at 41.0 percent, down from 43.0 percent on July 22 in FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker. While his approval rating was at 41.6 percent as of Thursday at 5 p.m. ET, this is about as low as Trump’s approval rating has been since the end of the government shutdown this past January.
The latest poll from ABC News/Washington Post found Trump’s approval rating at 38 percent, 6 points lower than the president’s approval rating in an early July survey. The new poll also showed that net approval of the president’s handling of the economy is slightly underwater, with 46 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving. This is notable, as the public has been more receptive to Trump’s handling of the economy compared to other issues. The president has — at least in part — attached his reelection fortunes to strong economic conditions. But even more troubling for Trump is that the ABC News/Washington Post poll also found that 60 percent of Americans believe a recession is somewhat or very likely to happen sometime over the next year. And as my colleague Nathaniel Rakich wrote last week, even some Republicans are starting to sour on Trump’s handling of the economy, so a deterioration in attitudes about the economy and the president’s stewardship of it could hurt his overall standing.