Harry Truman long held the record as the most unpopular president heading into a midterm election, and four new polls have handed it to President Donald Trump.
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten walked viewers through those surveys on “CNN News Central” on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and told anchor John Berman that the pattern repeats poll after poll.
The four October pre-midterm surveys Enten displayed put the president’s net approval at minus 32 in NBC’s poll, minus 33 in ABC’s, minus 35 in Reuters/Ipsos and minus 38 in the Pew Research Center’s. Truman sat at minus 30 in the same stretch before a midterm, the previous worst on record. All four numbers fall below it.
A Five-Alarm Trumpster Fire
Enten summed up the slide in one line: “This is a five-alarm Trumpster fire – that’s what we’re talking about.”
Berman asked whether the numbers were an anomaly. Enten said they were not.
The Reuters/Ipsos figure marks the lowest of Trump’s presidency in that survey. The same poll had him at plus 6 in January 2025, the first month of his second term. Among independent voters, Reuters/Ipsos now puts him at minus 54.
Truman and Bush Lost Both Chambers
Enten’s closest historical parallels were Truman and former President George W. Bush, each sitting at minus 15 or lower around a midterm. The president’s party surrendered control of the House and the Senate both times. Historically, he said, approval that low before a midterm takes both chambers down with the president.
“This president, as unpopular as he is, is dragging Republicans underwater,” Enten said. He has also reported that Trump carries the highest “strongly disapprove” rating of any president going into a midterm.
New Pew polling on Oct. 9 put the president’s net approval 38 points underwater — a record low before a midterm — and Enten called the numbers “laughably bad.” “No president I’ve ever seen is in a worse position before a midterm election than President Trump,” he said.
He searched for precedent back through Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt and found nothing close. The other readings at that point: Reuters/Ipsos had Trump 33 points underwater, an earlier Ipsos survey from the previous month 34, CNN’s own poll 34, and an Associated Press poll matched Pew at 38. No other president before a midterm had even reached minus 31, Enten said.
The Bloc That Broke Hardest
The steepest drop came among independents, the bloc Pew’s validated voter research found splitting evenly between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Enten, in the Oct. 9 segment, put the president 57 points underwater with that group. He said he struggled to find adjectives for the plunge.
Trump has urged supporters to “vote like I’m on the ballot.” Enten said Democrats are begging voters to do exactly that, because a midterm fought as a referendum on the president all but guarantees Democrats win back the House. He pointed to Trump’s standing as the reason Democratic chances of capturing the Senate keep climbing.
Nobody Privately Says They’ll Hold
White House spokesman Davis Ingle pushed back in a statement. “President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress,” Ingle said. Voters face a choice that has never been clearer, he said, pitting the president’s agenda against what he called the Democrats’ extreme liberal policies and obstruction.
His war with Iran, launched in February 2026, drove up energy prices and sent Trump’s political fortunes into decline. Voters rank the economy and his handling of it near the top of their concerns.
Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 8 points in the RealClearPolling average. Several House districts Trump carried by double digits in 2024 are now considered competitive.
Former Republican congressman Carlos Curbelo lost his competitive Florida seat in 2018, during Trump’s first midterm elections. The environment, he said, is about as tough as one could expect. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House—not in recent weeks, anyway,” Curbelo said.