8 in 10 Americans disapprove of Trump on inflation. This is extremely rare for a president
We don’t yet know how the 2026 midterm elections will play out.
What we can say right now is that President Donald Trump’s handling of inflation constitutes a historic liability – the likes of which we have rarely seen in modern American politics.
As many as 8 in 10 Americans now disapprove of Trump on this issue. It’s more than disapproving presidents for wars gone wrong, botched responses to crises, and even major scandals like Watergate.
A new AP-NORC poll from Thursday constitutes the latest ugly data point for Trump. It showed that Americans disapproved of him by a staggering margin on cost-of-living issues: 82 percent to 17 percent.
It’s rare for 70 percent of Americans to agree on anything political. But Trump managed to unite 8 in 10 Americans against his handling of one of the country’s most important issues.
And this poll isn’t just an outlier. Here is a brief recap of recent polls on this issue:
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Three recent polls showed Trump’s approval rating on this issue falling above the teens: AP-NORC (17%), Reuters-Ipsos (17%) and Marquette Law School (19%).
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Three also showed at least 80% disapproval: AP-NORC (82%), Marquette (80%) and a CNN poll (80%).
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AP-NORC, Reuters-Ipsos, Marquette Law School and CNN polls all show that at least 50% of Republicans disapproved.
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29% of self-described MAGA Republicans disapproved, according to a Fox News poll.
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43% of people who otherwise said they approved of Trump disapproved due to inflation, according to the CNN poll.
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Between 63% and 72% of whites without a college degree disapproved of these polls, although this may be Trump’s signature demographic.
The level of disapproval on such an important issue has few precedents, although George W. Bush faced a 77 percent disapproval rating in a CBS News/New York Times poll for his handling of the economy late in his term after the 2008 financial crisis. In 1980, the same poll showed Jimmy Carter’s disapproval on the issue peaking at 74 percent amid high unemployment and inflation.
One of the most likely causes of such disapproval seems to be war. And these were very unpopular. But not as unpopular as Trump’s handling of the cost of living. George W. Bush’s disapproval rating for the Iraq War peaked at around 70 percent. Disapproval of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan peaked at around two-thirds. And the Vietnam War led Lyndon Johnson to abandon his re-election bid in 1968, but his disapproval rating on the issue didn’t go back until the 1960s.
In fact, the highest rate of disapproval for any war appears to be in Trump’s latest numbers on the Iran war. The CNN poll showed that 73% disapproved of his handling of the matter.
When it comes to crises, as many as 64 percent of respondents disapproved of Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, and disapproval of Carter over the Iran hostage crisis reached the mid-50s. Even Trump’s handling of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol (67 percent according to a CNN poll) hasn’t been as lopsided as Trump and inflation are right now.
As for scandals, Ronald Reagan’s disapproval of the Iran-Contra affair reached as high as 69 percent in a January 1987 Washington Post-ABC News poll. And at the height of Watergate, as many as 71 percent of Americans disapproved of Richard Nixon on domestic issues. (We don’t have good approval polls at the time on Watergate, in particular.)
Speaking of Nixon, the pardons also tested Americans’ tolerance. But even Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon — which was supposed to have crippled Ford politically — did not generate some disapproval until the 1950s, according to polls compiled by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
Indeed, the closest thing to Trump’s 80% disapproval on a major issue was another set of controversial pardons: his pardon of the violent defendants on January 6 of last year. A Pew Research Center poll showed that 74 percent of Americans disapproved of the proposal.
You may notice a trend here. Many of the president’s most disapproved of issues concern the same president: Trump. This includes the war in Iran, the January 6 attack on the Capitol and the resulting pardons. But the disapproval he faces of inflation goes beyond all these questions.
You might be able to understand why Republicans are suddenly eager to pass affordability legislation before the election.
Trump, in a new interview with Time magazine published Thursday, said Americans shouldn’t hold him responsible for their affordability problems and again blamed inflation on Biden. (This is even though inflation is higher today than it was when Trump took power last year.)
But the AP-NORC poll is the latest to suggest that strategy won’t work. This shows that 65% of Americans blamed rising prices more on Trump’s policies than on factors beyond his control. That number for Biden just before the 2022 midterm elections was much lower: 44%.
Perhaps Trump’s party can still come out on top in the upcoming midterm elections. But if it does, it will be despite historic dissatisfaction with the president on voters’ number one issue.
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