Editor's note: This article was originally published in The Surveyor, YouGov America's weekly email newsletter. It has been revised for publication here. Subscribe to The Surveyor for regular updates on YouGov's polling.
Donald Trump's net approval — the share of Americans who strongly or somewhat approve of how he's handling his job minus the share who disapprove — dropped 5 points from last week's Economist / YouGov Poll (-13) to this week's (-18).
That puts Trump at a new low in net approval for his second term. And -18 is a lower net approval than in all but one week in Trump's first term (also in the first year of the term: -21 in the November 10 - 14, 2017 survey).
So what does this mean for what share of Americans will approve of Trump in the near future? Not very much, as it happens.
The Economist / YouGov Poll has asked Americans whether they approve or disapprove of Trump's job performance since the start of his first term in 2017. In 126 of those polls, Trump's net approval fell from the prior week (not counting this week's poll). And the week after those declines, Trump's approval went up 59% of the time (74 of the 126 polls); it went down 41% of the time (52 of 126).
Likewise, 112 Economist / YouGov Polls have shown Trump's net approval as higher than the prior week. Two-thirds (66%) of those increases were followed by a drop in net approval in the subsequent poll.
The back and forth of Trump approval could reflect reversals in his fortune during quickly changing news cycles, or regression to the mean as Americans on the fence about him change their minds from week to week. And we can see some very clear patterns in Trump's net approval. But those patterns aren't always obvious in the moment. After all, the November 2017 poll showing Trump at his record-low approval turned out to be a passing slump, not a sustained drop.
Trump's second term so far has included several declines in approval that have continued for several consecutive weeks, and several periods of similarly sustained increases. But even those periods that in hindsight look like stability had ups and downs that didn't translate into long-term change.
The way to tell if a big drop such as the one Trump's net approval took in the September 12 - 15 poll reflects a real change in how Americans view Trump, as opposed to random noise, is to wait and see if the trend continues. If Trump's approval rating falls again next week — or stays about where it is — that will suggest something real is at work. But if it bounces back up, that will suggest his drop this week was more likely a blip than a major change.
Read more about Trump's approval rating, as well as other topics, in YouGov's summary of this week's Economist / YouGov Poll.
Methodology: The poll was conducted among 1,567 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3.5%.
Image: Getty
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