A new Financial Times/Focaldata poll pegs President Trump's job approval at just 33 percent, a record low for the series, as rising fuel costs, tariff blowback, and the war with Iran erode support even among Republican voters.
The online survey of 1,914 registered voters, conducted in late August, found Trump's approval dropped three percentage points from the previous month and hit its lowest mark since the Financial Times began tracking the number in May. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said the economy was headed in the wrong direction, and 57 percent said they were financially worse off under Trump, up from 53 percent just a month earlier.
The erosion is not confined to independents or swing voters. Among Republican voters alone, approval of Trump fell to 72 percent, down more than two points. Their approval of his handling of jobs and the economy cratered to 53 percent, a drop of nearly eight points in a single month. Those are not opposition-party numbers. They come from the president's own base.
A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll reported by Fox News confirmed the trend, putting Trump's approval at 33 percent among 1,166 respondents, matching his all-time low first recorded in December 2017. In that survey, 64 percent disapproved of his job performance.
Two forces are squeezing household budgets at the same time. Diesel fuel hit a record $5.85 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA data cited by the Financial Times. The spike is tied to supply disruptions from the U.S. war with Iran and higher borrowing costs, pressures that flow straight into freight rates, food prices, and every other good that moves by truck.
On the trade front, Trump's 50 percent tariff on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods drew broad disapproval. Fifty-six percent of voters opposed the tariff. More than 60 percent of independents disapproved, and nearly one-third of Republicans did as well. Ottawa retaliated with duties of up to 50 percent on U.S. imports, widening the economic pain on both sides of the border.
The White House pushed back on the grim numbers. A spokesperson told the Financial Times that the administration "remains committed to implementing a proven economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and energy abundance," pointing to the August jobs report as evidence of continued private-sector growth. No specific figures from that report appeared in the polling data or the FT's coverage.
At a New York rally, Trump addressed rising prices directly. "Remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, $4, it's OK," he told supporters, according to Fox News. That message may reassure a rally crowd. Whether it reassures a voter filling a diesel tank at $5.85 is another question.
The FT/Focaldata poll found Democrats now hold a 7.5-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, the question that asks voters which party they prefer for Congress without naming specific candidates. That margin widened from five points a month earlier, a significant swing heading into a midterm cycle.
Forty-six percent of voters said Trump was making it harder for Republican congressional candidates to win in November. Among independents, that number crossed the halfway mark. And 47 percent of independents said a Trump endorsement would make them less likely to back a candidate, a warning sign for every Republican running in a swing district.
The declining value of a Trump endorsement is not just theoretical. In contested primaries and general elections alike, candidates have struggled to convert the president's backing into votes when broader economic dissatisfaction dominates the conversation.
Fox News noted that 80 percent of Americans expect the Iran war to last an extended period, and only 35 percent support the conflict. Foreign policy rarely drives midterm elections on its own, but when it compounds economic frustration, when voters see both their gas bill and their sense of security moving in the wrong direction, the political cost multiplies.
White House spokesperson Olivia Wales framed the situation as inherited. "President Trump is cleaning up Joe Biden's mess, and there is more work to do, but the United States of America has never been stronger," she told Fox News. The poll numbers suggest voters are not buying that framing at the moment.
Against this backdrop, the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. disclosed $10 million in new ad spending to support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee, against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. The filing landed Saturday, the same day as the poll.
That Texas requires a $10 million intervention from a PAC with a reported $400 million war chest tells its own story. Texas has not been competitive Senate territory for Democrats in a generation. If MAGA Inc. is spending eight figures to hold a seat there, the national map looks worse than the topline numbers alone suggest.
The Republican National Committee is preparing what it calls an unprecedented two-day midterm convention in Dallas next week, headlined by Trump. The event is designed to project unity and momentum heading into the fall campaign. The poll numbers it will have to answer for project neither.
Internal tensions within the party add another layer of uncertainty. High-profile breaks between Trump and prominent Republican allies have surfaced in recent months, raising questions about whether the coalition that carried the party through 2024 can hold together under the weight of a difficult policy environment.
The FT/Focaldata survey carries a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for the full sample, with larger margins for subgroups. Focaldata, a London-based nonpartisan research firm, conducted the poll online. Even accounting for the margin of error, Trump's approval would top out at roughly 36 percent, still well below the level most political strategists consider safe ground for a governing party heading into midterms.
One poll is a snapshot, not a verdict. But the trend lines all point the same direction: overall approval down, base enthusiasm softening, independents souring, and the generic ballot widening. When multiple indicators move together, the signal is harder to dismiss as noise.
The administration's ongoing legal and political battles over election rules add procedural uncertainty to an already volatile midterm landscape. Voters who feel squeezed economically tend to punish the party in power regardless of which legal arguments prevail in court.
Meanwhile, the unusual spectacle of cross-party polling surprises in states like Pennsylvania underscores how fluid voter loyalties have become when economic anxiety overrides partisan habit.
Conservative voters who backed Trump expecting lower prices, stronger borders, and a leaner government are not wrong to measure results against promises. A 33 percent approval rating does not mean the agenda was wrong. It means the results have not arrived fast enough for the people living with the consequences, and November is getting closer by the day.