WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s approval rating has reached a record personal low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, and it is showing up on the ballot: likely voters back the Democratic candidate for Congress over the Republican, 52% to 44%.
ABC News published the results Sunday from a survey Ipsos ran Oct. 9 to 13 among 2,545 U.S. adults. The same survey produced the Hasan execution livestream poll that ABC released on Thursday.
Thirty-three percent of adults approve of Trump and 66% disapprove, ABC reported, below the 38% who approved after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Among registered voters the numbers are 37% and 63%. With the midterms just over two weeks away, ABC wrote that his weak ratings “do not bode well for his party given that midterms are often a referendum vote on the president.”
Independent voters set records: 22% approve and 76% disapprove, the worst readings over his two terms, ABC News reported. Among Republicans, 79% approve, down from 88% near the start of his second term, and a record-low 39% strongly approve, against 63% in February 2025. Democrats lead independent likely voters 56% to 35%.
Prices drive much of the mood. Seventy-one percent now call gasoline unaffordable, up from 28% in February, before the war in Iran drove up fuel costs, as ABC put it. The national average has topped $4 a gallon for a record 158 days this year, ABC noted. On cost of living, Trump’s weakest issue in the poll, 21% approve and 77% disapprove. Overall, 72% say the country is headed in the wrong direction.
The poll also tests his conduct of the office. A record-high 66% say Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself, and 74% call it inappropriate for the federal government to pay for TV ads promoting him and his policies. Those ads carried a line saying they were “paid for by the U.S. government,” ABC noted, and a federal judge has ordered them to stop, as TEH reported on the taxpayer-funded ads earlier this month.
Treat the figures as estimates. ABC put the margin of error at 2 points overall and 2.2 among registered and likely voters, with larger margins for most subgroups, and every registered voter was assigned a probability of voting to produce the likely-voter results.
About 2 in 10 voters dislike both parties, and they favor the Democratic candidate 58% to 32%, ABC found. Whether they turn out on Election Day is not something a poll fielded Oct. 9 to 13 can confirm.
