Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit another all-time lowest point in his presidency. A brand new NBC News poll shows his numbers have dropped another 3 points since this same time last year. For a president already sitting near the bottom of public opinion, that continued slide is not a small thing.
The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from February 27 to March 3, using both telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The results paint a picture of a president losing ground with the very people who put him in office.
Only 44 percent of registered voters now say they approve of how Trump is handling his presidency. That number stood at 47 percent in March 2025. The drop of another 3 points in a single year may sound small, but in presidential polling, every point represents millions of Americans changing their minds.
The disapproval side of the ledger tells an even sharper story. A full 54 percent of voters now say they do not approve of Trump’s performance. That number has climbed from 51 percent just one year ago. More Americans are actively turning away from this president with each passing month.
A separate Quinnipiac University national poll, conducted March 6 through March 8 among 1,002 registered voters, paints an even more alarming picture. Just 37 percent of voters approve of the way Trump is handling his presidency, while 57 percent disapprove. That produces a net approval rating of minus 20 points nationally.
The polling average from Decision Desk HQ places Trump’s approval at 43.1 percent, with disapproval sitting at 54.4 percent. These numbers confirm that neither poll is an outlier. The trend is consistent across every major survey, and it is pointing in one direction only.
Among independent voters, the collapse is even more dramatic. The Quinnipiac poll found that just 28 percent of independents now approve of Trump’s performance, while a striking 66 percent disapprove. That produces a net approval rating of minus 38 points with independents, the lowest level ever recorded in this polling series.
To understand how dramatic that collapse is, consider where things stood just over a year ago. In a Quinnipiac poll conducted in late January 2025, Trump held a positive overall approval rating of plus 3 points nationally. Among independents at that time, he was nearly even, sitting at minus 5 points. Today he is at minus 38 with those same voters.
That is a 33-point collapse among independent voters in just over one year.
Brett Lloyd, a polling and research specialist for the Independent Center, told Newsweek exactly why that number matters so much.
“Independents are the only group not grading on a curve. Partisans will forgive almost anything to see their side win, but independents are the ultimate results voters.”
Lloyd added a pointed piece of advice for the White House.
“He doesn’t need to fire up the people who already have the hat. He needs to convince the independent voter who is underwater on their car loan that he has a stable plan to fix it. Less retribution, more remedy.”
The Iran war is playing a direct and visible role in pulling these numbers down. The Quinnipiac poll found that just 38 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the situation in Iran, while 57 percent disapprove. The NBC News poll similarly found only 41 percent of voters supporting his Iran efforts.
The broader public opposition to the war itself is even more striking. Fifty-three percent of voters oppose the U.S. military action against Iran altogether, while only 40 percent support it. Among independent voters, opposition runs at 60 percent versus 31 percent support.
When asked specifically about sending American ground troops into Iran, the public is even more unified against the idea. A full 74 percent of voters oppose boots on the ground, including 95 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of independents, and even 52 percent of Republicans.
“Voters are unenthusiastic about the air attack on Iran and there is overwhelming opposition to putting American troops on Iranian soil to fight a ground war,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.
The war is also fueling deep economic anxiety. A full 74 percent of voters say they are either very concerned or somewhat concerned that the Iran conflict will drive oil and gas prices higher. More than 20 percent of the world’s oil travels through the region, and voters clearly understand what that means for their wallets.
“Voters know the score: pain at the pump is inevitable. When about 20 percent of the world’s oil flows through a region torn apart by conflict, it will eventually hit home at the local filling station,” Malloy added.
On the economy more broadly, the numbers are brutal. A full 62 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation and the cost of living, while only 36 percent approve. The Quinnipiac poll found that 58 percent disapprove of Trump’s economic handling, which is the highest disapproval he has ever received on the economy in the entire history of that polling series.
Nearly half of all voters, 48 percent, now say Trump’s policies have actually hurt the economy. Only 35 percent say his policies have helped. That is a complete reversal from his first term, when more voters said his policies helped than hurt.
Just 27 percent of voters say their own personal financial situation is getting better right now. Meanwhile, 38 percent say it is getting worse, and 35 percent say it is staying about the same. That means nearly 4 in 10 Americans feel financially worse off today than before.
Trump’s tariff agenda is receiving particularly harsh judgment. A full 55 percent of voters say his tariffs have hurt the economy, while only 33 percent say they have helped. That number comes after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping global tariff program in February, and Trump subsequently reimposed a new round of levies.
On immigration, the picture is more complicated. While 53 percent of voters still approve of Trump’s handling of border security, a majority of 54 percent disapprove of his handling of immigration overall. The deaths of two U.S. citizens during an ICE operation in Minnesota have added to that backlash. More than half of all voters now hold negative views of ICE itself.
Trump is also taking sustained political damage from his administration’s handling of files linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. That controversy has refused to fade from the public conversation, and it continues to act as a slow but steady drag on his overall numbers.
Democrats have swept elections in the months since Trump took office, and the generic congressional ballot now shows Democrats leading Republicans by 6 points, with 50 percent of registered voters preferring Democratic control of Congress versus 44 percent preferring Republicans. Democrats need a net gain of only three seats to take back the House majority.
Voter interest in the coming midterm elections is already running at unusually high levels. A full 64 percent of voters rate their interest at a 9 or 10 out of 10, a level of enthusiasm normally seen right before an election day rather than this far in advance. Among Democrats specifically, 74 percent report that same high level of interest.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle pushed back on the polling data in a statement to Newsweek.
“The ultimate poll was November 5, 2024, when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and common-sense agenda. The president has already made historic progress not only in America but around the world.”
Trump himself has spoken publicly about the disconnect he sees between his own read of public opinion and what the polls are showing.
“It just amazes me that there’s not more support out there. We actually have silent support. I think it’s silent. I think that’s how I won,” Trump said at a White House event last month.
Trump has also openly acknowledged concern about the midterm elections, warning fellow Republicans about the historical pattern of the party in power losing seats.
“Presidents, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, when they win, it doesn’t make any difference. They seem to lose the midterms,” Trump told conservative talk show host Will Cain.
The deeper structural warning buried inside these numbers is perhaps the most important one. Sixty-two percent of voters say the Trump administration has not provided a clear explanation for why the United States is at war with Iran. That is not just a foreign policy problem. It is a credibility problem, and credibility is the one thing a president cannot buy back once it is gone.
A majority of voters, 59 percent, also believe Trump should have gone to Congress for approval before launching military strikes on Iran. That finding suggests the public believes he overstepped his constitutional authority, an argument that Senate Democrats are now pushing aggressively on Capitol Hill.
What all of these polls make clear, taken together, is that Trump is not simply navigating a difficult news cycle. He is facing a sustained, multi-front collapse in public trust at the exact moment when he needs that trust most, with midterm elections on the horizon and a war still burning overseas. Another all-time lowest point has been recorded. And based on every condition driving these numbers right now, there is no obvious floor in sight.
