Americans are feeling the squeeze from the high cost of living — and it’s negatively impacting their opinion of President Trump, a new poll shows.
Politico’s new “Trump & Affordability” survey of 2,000 Americans underscored just how big economic concerns are right now. Most respondents (56 percent) said the high cost of living was the top issue facing the U.S. today, and it ranked above other problems like healthcare accessibility (which 22 percent said topped the list of issues), high crime (16 percent), and illegal immigration (12 percent).
Forty-five percent of respondents said groceries were what they struggled to afford most, followed by housing costs (38 percent) and healthcare (34 percent).
Who’s to blame?
The president’s attempts to blame former President Joe Biden for high inflation and other economic woes may not be sticking. Close to half of respondents — 46 percent — say Donald Trump is fully or at least “mainly” responsible for the state of the U.S. economy. Comparatively, 29 percent blamed Biden fully or mostly. What’s more, 41 percent of respondents think Trump has had a chance to change things, but hasn’t taken it.
Even within his own base, cracks are showing: 18 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2024 now say he’s fully responsible for the economic woes. Twenty-nine percent of non-MAGA Trump voters believe Trump could’ve improved things but hasn’t, compared to 11 percent of self-identified MAGA voters.
This isn’t the only recent data that paints a grim picture of Americans’ views of the economy. As we reported late last month, consumer confidence in November hit its lowest level since April, and expectations for increased household incomes shrank dramatically. According to Politico’s poll, 43 percent of Americans, including 31 percent of Trump voters, think there’s less economic opportunity now than in the past.
Trump’s approval rating
Politico’s revelations come as a new Gallup poll shows Trump’s approval rating has dropped five points since October. It currently sits at 36 percent — the lowest point of his second term. His disapproval rating, meanwhile, rose to 60 percent.
Even those within his party expressed waning enthusiasm — Republicans’ approval slipped seven points to 84 percent, the worst in his second term. Just 25 percent of Independents are happy with Trump’s performance during his second term, the lowest of all his time in office. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Democrats’ approval of the president hovers around an abysmal 3 percent.
The Gallup poll shows that economic issues, which were once considered a strong point of Trump’s, may be slipping. Just 36 percent of Americans approve of how he’s handling the economy — down six points since the last time it was measured over the summer. Meanwhile, the government shutdown caused a 12-point drop in approval of the federal budget.
As Gallup put it, “The longest shutdown of the federal government, election losses for the Republican Party and continued concerns about affordability appear to have damaged Trump’s standing with the American people in November.”
This all has bigger implications as we look toward the 2026 midterms. If the Democratic victories in this November’s elections proved anything, it’s that Democrats can benefit from focusing their campaigns on affordability.
“House Republicans should 100 percent expect to see ads next year calling them out for their broken promise to lower prices and for supporting Trump’s tariffs,” CJ Warnke, a spokesperson for the Democratic super PAC House Majority PAC, said in a statement to Politico. Axios reported that the Democrats may be doing just that: Sen. Chuck Schumer reportedly told Senate Dems to craft cost-cutting proposals and contrast their party’s economic policies with those of the GOP.
Whether the president takes Americans’ struggles to heart remains to be seen. Despite referring to himself as “the affordability president,” he also said affordability “doesn’t mean anything to anybody” during a cabinet meeting this week and called it a “con job” created by the Democrats as a “fake narrative” for the public. But President Trump will be traveling to Pennsylvania on Tuesday to discuss his administration’s efforts to bring down prices.
