Trump's approval hits new low as Epstein pressure mounts
The news is all about tariffs, deportations, and Trump's Epstein files shenanigans. And he's massively underwater on all three.
This is one of those classic weeks in a Trump presidency where too many stories are moving too fast for an individual writer to keep up. There are new tariffs, expansion of deportation operations, a will-he-or-won't-he dance about firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and, of course, the sudden about-face on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's many crimes, personal connections, and sudden death in 2019.
The news is moving so fast that I've had to write this intro four times now to update the following sentence: The latest news, per the Wall Street Journal, is that Trump sent Epstein a birthday card in 2003 with a drawing of a naked woman with the words "we have certain things in common" and wishing him "may every day be another wonderful secret." Yikes!
Earlier this week, Trump said he was done with the Epstein issue and no longer wanted the support of people who voted for him because they thought he would release more information about the sex offender’s crimes and his conspirators. The president said his administration would not be releasing any more information about the investigation into Epstein. Currently on Polymarket, bettors say the probability that Jeffrey Epstein is actually alive is 3% and that Trump will appoint a special prosecutor is 1%.
In the background of all this, polls show Trump's position plummeting. For this week's Chart of the Week, let's take a quick look at Trump's approval overall, and on tariffs, deportations, and Epstein. The size of the hole he is in on the Epstein case is maybe the worst number I’ve ever seen for a president.
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Trump's three-front war on his approval rating
As of 8:00 AM Eastern on July 18, 2025, Donald Trump's approval rating in the Strength In Numbers average is 42.6%, versus a 53.5% disapproval. Trump's net score of -10.9 is a new low for his second term.
You can check a live-updating version of this average on our data portal. Refresh to your heart's content!
And polls show three things are really weighing the president down:
1. Mass deportations
According to Gallup, only 35% approve of Trump's immigration policy, with 62% disapproving — one of his worst net ratings of any poll. Moreover, more than twice as many Americans strongly disapproved (45%) as strongly approved (21%) of the way the president is handling immigration.
Opinion is worse on deportations specifically. According to a new Quinnipiac University poll, 59% of adults disapprove of Trump's deportation policy. Nearly two-thirds of voters (64%) say they prefer giving most undocumented immigrants in the United States a pathway to legal status, while 31% say they prefer deporting people here without authorization. Over half of all adults, and nearly 1 in 5 Republicans, disapprove of ICE.
Meanwhile, in terms of economic consequences, hotels and farms have been warning that labor shortages will lead to higher prices and less predictable supply. Trump previously said he would exempt some of these workers, but Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins has said farmworkers actually will be deported after all. The deportation policy has been criticized for being inhumane, inconsistent, and unpredictable. Generally speaking, those are things people don't like.
Aaron Blake at CNN has a good write-up of more polling on immigration, but you get the picture.
Ranting about Democrats' attacks against ICE on Tuesday, a Fox News host said that he wants to reclaim the word "Nazi," inviting his friends to welcome him with a friendly "What's up, my Nazi?" I don’t have a poll about this, but I have a pretty strong prior that it won’t help the president with his detractors.
2. Tariffs
Normal people are both disproportionately exposed and broadly opposed to Trump’s tariffs. That’s because they increase the prices of everyday goods like groceries, clothes, and toys. We know that Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs were deeply unpopular, but his new taxes are at a lower level. Do people like them more (or, dislike them less?) since they’re smaller in size and scope?
A new Politico poll suggests the answer is no. Even among Trump's own voters, there is a lot of opposition to his new tariff scheme. Politico reports:
About 1 in 4 self-identified 2024 Trump voters, for example, said last month that the president’s tariffs are hurting the United States’ ability to negotiate better trade deals with other countries. They’re also evenly divided on whether Trump should have the ability to unilaterally impose tariffs on other countries in the first place, with 45 percent saying he should and 44 percent saying he should get approval from Congress.
And on Thursday, a new Associated Press-NORC poll found that most Americans say Trump's policies have made them worse off. According to the survey, 49% of Americans feel Trump’s policies have done more harm than good, while only a quarter believe his policies have helped. Twenty-two percent say they have not been impacted by Trump.
3. The Epstein files
Finally, we get to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump's political vulnerability on Epstein is extreme and three-fold: First, most people want the government to publish everything it has collected in investigating Epstein. YouGov found that 79% of voters want the government to “release all documents it has about the Jeffrey Epstein case,” versus 4% who say the government should not release the documents. That works out to a 20:1 ratio against the president’s current position.
This includes 75% of Republicans.
And a new Reuters/Ipsos poll out Thursday found that 69% of adults think the government is actively hiding what it knows about Epstein's client list. Just 17% of Americans approve of how the president is handling the Epstein files:
Trump now calls the whole thing a hoax, but GOP allies are revolting: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Johnson, as well as others, have called on Trump to release the documents. Even Joe Rogan jumped in on his podcast this week to ask what Trump's hiding. This follows Elon Musk saying on Twitter a few weeks back that the president was on Epstein’s client list. So Trump's refusal to release new info about Epstein also threatens to turn many in his own party against him.
Third, by siding with Epstein and against transparency, Trump significantly injures his reputation as an outsider fighting the "deep state" for God and country. Much of the conspiratorial wing of the Republican Party has been arguing that Epstein was in bed with major Democratic donors and other political elites — by refusing to side against them, Trump implicitly sides with them.
That will hurt Trump with disaffected and disengaged voters. Eg, young men are particularly likely to turn against Trump because of stuff like this.
Trump is unpopular on all major issues, but his approval on Epstein is in a league of its own (not in a good way)
When it comes to public opinion, the timeline tells the real story. Here's what the data shows when we plot Trump's net approval rating on certain issues over time:
The chart reveals three distinct phases in Trump's approval rating:
Early April: "Liberation Day" tariffs announced, Trump's approval takes a first accelerated decline.
Mid April: Trump's deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the ensuing backlash causes a sudden drop in his approval overall and on immigration.
Early-mid June: ICE orders a surge in deportations and targets Los Angeles for raids. Trump sends in the National Guard and Marines. This causes a second drop in Trump's approval that is related to immigration and deportations.
And now, after this Epstein backlash, Trump has hit a fresh low. Averaging across polls, he has a -42 net approval rating on handling the files, with 17% approving of the president's approach and 59% disapproving. This is the worst issue of his presidency by far.
Here’s the chart of the week:
Midterms watch
There are still 110 days until the November off-year elections, and 473 til next year’s midterms, but Trump's coalition is now showing visible cracks. He has lost any claim he once had to a "mandate" for change (this was never credible) and now, even his allies are turning.
While polls can change, opposition and simmering dissatisfaction can cause structural problems over the long term. And when multiple policy areas are underwater simultaneously, it becomes harder to pivot to safer ground.
This also means what Democrats do in this window matters. The public is paying attention now, and Trump's vulnerabilities are clear. The question is whether Democrats can capitalize on this moment or if Trump can find a way to change the subject. The president's recent threat to revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship (a power he does not have, to be clear) is a transparent attempt to do so.
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As always, I find your data and analysis concisely and clearly presented. You're also right that the key political question is whether Ds can capitalize on this.
Trump went into this term high on his own supply regarding immigration. I think if he had gone about it by actually removing criminals and actually deporting them to their home country, he could have won on this issue.
Now he's bringing up the OG Alcatraz again, he's determined to reopen it. A complete wreck, they would have to tear the old building down and rebuild. No roads, everything has to come by boat or helicopter. The expense alone would rival the cost of one of Elon's rockets blowing up.