CNN data analyst Harry Enten highlighted a troubling milestone for President Donald Trump on Wednesday: a full year of persistently negative approval numbers.
On the March 11, 2026, broadcast of CNN News Central, anchor John Berman and Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten examined new data showing Trump has remained below water in polling averages for 365 consecutive days. The segment marked an unwelcome anniversary for the White House as Trump faces mounting political headwinds ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“Every day since March 12th, 2025, President Trump has been underwater,” Enten declared, displaying his aggregate polling data. He colorfully described the president’s predicament: “Trump has been swimming with the fishes for a year.”
The numbers paint a bleak picture for Republicans. Enten’s breakdown shows Trump’s net approval among independent voters has plunged to -38 points — worse than George W. Bush’s -26 or Barack Obama’s -18 at a similar point in their second terms. Enten called Trump’s standing with this crucial voter bloc “downright awful.”
A Fox News poll mentioned in the segment found 60 percent of Americans overall believe the Trump administration is focused on the wrong priorities, rising to 78 percent among independents. The veteran data journalist did not mince words about the political fallout: “That’s a big frickin’ problem!”
Wednesday’s piece continues a series of polling examinations Enten has produced throughout Trump’s second term. In November 2025, he examined Trump’s approval with correspondent Elex Michaelson, focusing on voter attitudes about tariffs and economic policy. At that point, Trump’s approval among independents had already fallen from -4 points in January to -43 points in November — a decline Enten described as politically catastrophic.
The president’s marquee legislative plan has also struggled to win public favor. When Enten analyzed polling on Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” in June 2025, he found net approval between -19 and -29 points across multiple surveys. Trump signed the broad tax-and-spending package on July 4, 2025, with Vice President JD Vance providing the tie-breaking Senate vote for a 51-50 passage.
The political stakes are high. Enten noted prediction markets now give Democrats a 46 percent chance of retaking both the House and Senate — up from 21 percent at the start of 2026. Democrats are shown to have an 84 percent chance of reclaiming the House alone. Those shifts would greatly reshape the final two years of Trump’s presidency.
Not all poll indicators are negative for Trump. He maintains intense backing within his party — 86 percent of Republicans approve of his job performance, the strongest in-party approval of any 21st-century president at this stage of a second term. Bush and Obama were each at 77 percent. More than half of Republicans say they “strongly approve” of Trump, a majority neither predecessor reached.
Trump’s foreign policy ratings have been a relative bright spot. Enten reported in November that Trump’s 43 percent foreign policy approval exceeded both Bush and Obama at this point in their second terms, largely driven by his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Still, the broader trend is concerning for Republicans. In February 2026, before Trump’s State of the Union, Enten observed the president’s net approval dropped to -27 points — the worst pre-State of the Union rating of his tenure. His prior lows were -15 points in both 2018 and 2019.
For CNN, the ongoing polling coverage reinforces its emphasis on data-focused political reporting. Enten, promoted to Chief Data Analyst in February 2025, has become the network’s leading expert on electoral patterns. His frequent appearances simplifying complex surveys for broadcast have made him a regular on CNN News Central’s morning program.
As Trump reaches a year of continuous negative approval ratings, Republicans must consider whether that trend will continue through November. If it does, Enten’s analysis suggests the midterms could be disastrous for the president’s party — turning what Trump called his “big beautiful bill” into, as Enten said, “a big, beautiful night” for Democrats.