Democrats and the mainstream media have been harping on President Donald Trump's poll numbers for the first 100 days of his second term. While there's room for improvement, it's worth taking a more nuanced look, such as how there are still issues where Trump succeeds, and how Democrats' poll numbers are far worse. Trump also reached his first 100 days almost two weeks ago now. So, have those numbers changed?
As Interactive Polls highlighted on X, Trump's net approval has indeed gone up. On April 27, just days before that first 100 days of the term, an arbitrary date to begin with, Decision Desk HQ's average had him with a -9.2 percent net approval, which is also when plenty of polls focused on the negative were released. Two weeks later, on May 11, Trump was at a -4.8 percent net approval. It's his highest in over a month, since April 5.
.@DecisionDeskHQ average: Trump's net approval has increased by 4.4 points since late April — highest level since April 5.
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 11, 2025
April 27: -9.2%
MAY 11: -4.8%https://t.co/OhIzo6DKhK pic.twitter.com/V6qvvpOAeK
How did Trump's numbers go up? The three most recent polls included bring improvement. There's one from RMG Research / Napolitan News Service, which shows him at a tie for his approval/disapproval rating; one from Quantus Insights / TrendingPolitics, which shows Trump at a -0.1 disapproval; and a Big Data Poll, which shows him at a +0.6 percent approval.
That most recent one was completed April 30-May 8. Signs of improvement have kicked in, such as trade deal negotiations as well as how immigration and crime are still issues going relatively well for the president.
RealClearPolling has Trump at similar numbers, with a -5.4 percent net approval for May 9. These numbers have also shown an improvement since April 27. Although RCP doesn't include crime in their list of issues that the polls have examined, CNN's Harry Enten has highlighted how good an issue this is for Trump, especially in comparison to his own first term, and to his successor/predecessor, now former President Joe Biden. RCP still shows immigration as Trump's best issue. Further, RCP shows that on average, 41.3 percent believe the country is going in the "right direction," an improvement from Biden and also numbers we haven't seen in some time. During Biden's term, 38.8 percent thought the country was going in the "right direction," with a far more negative spread on "right direction" versus "wrong track."
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Trump, for his part, has made clear he doesn't trust the "fake news" polls, and has specifically called out The New York Times and ABC News/Washington post for their polls. The New York Times poll, as we covered not long after it was released, had some particularly questionable phrasing. It will be interesting what Trump's numbers look like for the next round of those polls, especially with looming trade deals, including with China.
Meanwhile, Democrats remain in disarray. The party has faced record high unfavorables/disapproval numbers, as we've been covering. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had the audacity to criticize Trump's numbers, only to say polls "come and go" when confronted about his own 17 percent favorable rating. He even still thinks he'll be majority leader again, come 2027.
The Republican Party overall is seeing improvements in comparison to the Democratic Party, leading to lots of chatter about the 2026 midterm elections, and how Democrats will fare when Trump is the one in office for another term. Internal polling from the National Republican Congressional Committee shows that Republicans are in a much better position for the House than they were at this point in 2017 for 2018.
In Cygnal's Brent Buchanan's daily takes for Monday, Buchanan highlighted first and foremost how "Republicans hold an 18-point trust advantage over Dems on this issue," which would be "cutting wasteful government spending." However, as the daily takes linked to, a POLITICO piece from Saturday night revealed that "Republicans’ partial tax plan estimated to cost $5 trillion." As Brent added, Republicans better get on top of this. "Republicans hold an 18-point trust advantage for Democrats over ‘cutting wasteful government spending.’ This reconciliation/tax bill is a huge opportunity for the GOP to grow this trust lead, but they must explain the exact waste, fraud & abuse they're cutting--or it'll cut them," he offered.
With the midterms just under 18 months away, there's plenty of time for Republicans to improve between now and then, or screw this up.
