President Trump’s approval rating has dipped slightly in new polling just over two months into his second term.
A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found 49 percent of registered voters approved of Trump’s job performance, down from 52 percent who said the same last month and compared to 46 percent who disapproved.
Trump's “general ratings have been holding up and he has much higher approval ratings than [former President] Biden. We show a dip but it’s within the margin of error and so we will see next month if it’s just random fluctuation or a trend,” said pollster Mark Penn.
Twelve percent of Republicans disapproved, compared to 79 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of independents who felt similarly.
The president’s approval also ticked down across more than half a dozen issues tested, including the economy and foreign affairs. He performed best on immigration, but even that score dropped from 56 percent approval last month to 53 percent this month.
More than 4 in 10 voters now think Trump is doing worse than expected, up 7 points from 35 percent in February. Thirty percent said he's doing better than expected, and 27 percent said he's doing as expected.
At the same time, 54 percent of voters think Trump is doing a better job in the White House than former President Biden did — though that figure is down from 58 percent last month.
Voters were split on Trump's favorability, with 47 percent each viewing him favorably and unfavorably. Biden was at 39 percent viewing him favorably and 53 percent unfavorably.
Trump started his second administration with some of the highest approval ratings he's garnered in either of his terms, but the latest numbers add to signs that his approval has been weakening since he returned to office.
His efforts to crack down on immigration have been largely well received, but he's started to see signs of struggle with his approval on the economy amid contention over tariffs and the stock market, and his efforts to slash the size of the federal government have been met with controversy.
A new poll from Gallup this week noted that Trump's average 45 percent support over the last three months is better than the 42 percent average from the same point in his first term — though the pollster also found Trump's approval ticked slightly down each month since January.
A tracker from pollster Nate Silver shows Trump's approval rating dipped below his disapproval score in mid-March.
The Harvard CAPS/Harris survey was conducted Mar. 26-27 among 2,746 registered voters by The Harris Poll and HarrisX. It is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 1.9 percentage points on a 95% confidence level.
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