President Donald Trump is set to see his worst approval ratings of this second term as new NBC polling released Sunday found that only 37 percent of adults approve of the president’s performance, and eight out of 10 Gen Z voters say the country is on the wrong track.
The poll, conducted by the NBC News Decision Desk and powered by SurveyMonkey, found that that not only is Trump seeing a 76 percent disapproval among voters aged 18 to 29, but that young Republicans are driving the downward trend, marking a troubling shift in a demographic largely credited as key to the party retaking the White House.
Newsweek reached out to the White House by email on Sunday morning for comment.
Throughout his second term, Trump’s polling has consistently shown more disapproval than approval, with Newsweek tracking a pattern of volatility rather than sustained recovery.
In spring and summer 2025, multiple national showed Trump’s approval rating slipping to new second‑term lows, including a period when his average approval stood in the mid‑40s while a majority of voters disapproved, prompting analysts to describe his numbers as “underwater” for most of the term.
Later in 2025 and into early 2026, polling shifts continued to be uneven across demographic groups, with occasional modest gains among subsets such as men or younger voters offset by deeper losses elsewhere.
That changed after Trump initiated the Iran war, which alienated parts of his base that had voted for him on the promise of the U.S. staying away from foreign conflicts, leading to Trump’s approval hitting the high 30’s to low 40’s range, with disapproval growing. Analysts largely determined that the Iran war had intensified already simmering concerns about the economy, with sharp jumps in gas and oil prices squeezing the cost of living.
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