Donald Trump has the lowest 100-day job approval rating of any president in the past 80 years, with public pushback on many of his policies and extensive economic discontent, including broad fears of a recession, according to a new ABC News\/Washington Post\/Ipsos poll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet he still beats the Democrats in Congress in terms of trust to handle the nation’s main problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thirty-nine percent of respondents in this ABC News\/Washington Post\/Ipsos poll said they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, down 6 percentage points from February, while 55% said they disapprove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The previous low in approval for a president at or near 100 days in office, in polls dating to 1945, was Trump’s 42% in 2017.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps most threatening to Trump, given his promise of an economic turnaround, is the extent of negative views on the economy: Seventy-two percent said they think it’s very or somewhat likely that his economic policies will cause a recession in the short term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seventy-three percent said the economy is in bad shape, 53% said it’s gotten worse since Trump took office and 41% said their own finances have worsened — which is as many as those who said so under President Joe Biden last summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixty-two percent said prices, which as a candidate, Trump pledged to curb, are rising. Seventy-one percent said they see his tariffs as a negative factor in price inflation. And just 31% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates<\/a> with fieldwork by Ipsos<\/a>, said they accept Trump’s argument that the economy will emerge with a stronger foundation for the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Negative assessments go beyond the economy. Sixty-five percent said Trump’s administration is trying to avoid complying with federal court orders, and 64% said he’s going too far in trying to expand presidential powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixty-two percent said they don’t think his administration respects the rule of law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Majorities also expressed concern that the president will do too much to reduce the size and role of government (58%), argued he’s acted beyond his authority as president without justification (56%) and doubted the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting citizens’ rights and freedoms (55%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n See PDF for full results.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Anywhere from 57% to 67% of Americans said they disapprove of Trump’s performance on six of seven issues tested in this survey, including at least 6 in 10 on his handling of stock market volatility, tariffs, foreign relations and the economy overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fewer, 53%, said they disapprove of his handling of immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Six in 10 or more said they oppose various administration initiatives, peaking at 77% opposed to cuts in federal funding for medical research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seventy percent were opposed to increasing the federal government’s role in how private universities are run, 67% were opposed to ending birthright citizenship and 66% were opposed to closing the Department of Education.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n As reported Friday<\/a>, opposition to deporting immigrants is lower, 51%. Additionally, on university governance, the public sided with Harvard University over the Trump administration in their dispute, 66%-32%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In another gauge, 57% said Trump is “going too far” in closing federal agencies, and it’s about the same, 56%, in both laying off federal employees and in taking action against his political opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This eases to about half on ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, reflecting the public’s divide on whether DEI efforts help level the playing field (51%) or create unfair discrimination (47%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a positive for the president, more people said they believe waste throughout the federal government has decreased rather than increased under Trump, 43%-25%. The rest said it’s stayed the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That doesn’t carry over in perceptions of fraud: Thirty-four percent said they think this has increased, while 32% said it has decreased.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another question, raised by Trump’s comprehensive efforts to reshape the government, found that 49% think the president is moving the country away from its founding principles, while 34% think he’s moving it closer toward them. Seventeen percent said they don’t think he’s moving it either way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 39%, Trump’s job approval rating is down from 45% in a Washington Post\/Ipsos poll in February. It now almost exactly matches his average, 40%, across his first term — tied with Biden for the lowest presidential career average available, dating back to President Harry Truman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notably, just 21% now said they “strongly” approve of Trump’s work in office, his lowest percentage on record. About twice as many, 44%, said they strongly disapprove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump’s approval rating from non-college-educated white men, a core support group, is 54%, tying his low in this group from his first term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That may reflect that 43% of non-college-educated white men said the nation’s economy has worsened under Trump, and a third said they have gotten less well off financially since he’s taken office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump is also tied with his previous lows in approval among Democrats and liberals.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, Trump is hanging on to the vast bulk of his voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among people who voted for him in November, just 6% said they now regret it, while 94% said it was the right thing to do. (Buyer’s regret was even lower, 2%, at this point in his first term, a 4-point swing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In another gauge of partisanship, 83% of Republicans said they approve of Trump’s work in office, while 93% of Democrats and 60% of independents said they disapprove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A difference is that 51% of Republicans strongly approve of Trump, while 85% of Democrats strongly disapprove. So do 44% of independents, three times as many as those who strongly approve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump’s ratings on individual issues, absent immigration, are also underwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixty-seven percent said they disapprove of his handling of the recent turmoil in the stock market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The S&P 500 is down 8.7% since Trump took office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On tariffs, 64% said they disapprove; on both the economy overall and U.S. relations with other countries, 61% said they disapprove; on looking out for the interests of average Americans, 58% said they disapprove; and on managing the federal government, 57% said they disapprove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The silver lining for Trump is that the opposition party remains out of favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People said they trust him over the Democrats in Congress to handle the nation’s main problems by 37%-30%. Underscoring bipartisan disaffection, 30% said they don’t trust either party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, while 60% said Trump is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the country, even more, 69%, said the Democratic Party is out of touch. It’s 64% for the Republican Party overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some telling partisan gaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the political middle, 62% of independents said Trump is out of touch, while substantially more, 76%, said the Democratic Party is out of touch. And in their own camps, relatively few Republicans said Trump is out of touch, 19%, while twice as many Democrats, 38%, said this about their own party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, more people said both parties should be doing more to oppose Trump rather than more to support him — the Democratic Party by 46%-38% and the Republican Party by 50%-26%, with the rest saying each party is handling this about right.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In both cases, independents help tip the balance to opposing versus supporting Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of the legal battles over Trump’s moves, people widely rejected the administration’s accusations of improper judicial interference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most, 62%-35%, said federal judges are trying to enforce existing limits on Trump’s legal authority rather than trying to interfere with his authority.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n An even wider margin of people, 67%-31%, said federal judges should have the authority to block an administration policy until a trial is held if they think it will harm people and is probably illegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, people said by a margin of 67%-31% that they think the Trump administration is trying to avoid complying with court orders regarding its activities rather than trying to comply with those orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Majority perceptions of presidential overreach are common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As mentioned, 58% said they express concern that Trump will do too much to reduce the size and role of the federal government. That’s essentially a mirror of attitudes under Biden: Fifty-nine percent said they were concerned he’d do too much to increase the government’s size and role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference is in partisan divisions, reflecting sharply different views of government between Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents on one hand and Republicans and Republican-leaning independents on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Democratic group, 91% said they are concerned Trump will do too much to shrink the size and role of government, while 26% in the Republican group said the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, by contrast, 87% in the GOP camp said they were concerned that Biden would go too far to increase the government’s size and role, while 31% in the Democratic group said so.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Views on the Trump administration cutting federal regulations are more closely divided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fifty-two percent said they think it will cut regulations that are needed to protect public health and safety, while 46% instead said they think it will cut unnecessary regulations while keeping those that are needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the last area covered by this survey, respondents by 49%-34% said they think Trump has weakened rather than strengthened U.S. leadership in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While still negative, that’s better than Biden’s 48%-23% result on the same question in 2022.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding Russia, 46% said Trump’s approach is too friendly, while 11% said it’s too confrontational and 40% said it’s about right. That’s similar to what it was in a January 2017 poll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This survey was completed before the administration’s move in the past week, pressuring Ukraine to accept a ceasefire deal favorable to Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Methodology:<\/strong> This ABC News\/Washington Post\/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel\u00ae April 18-22, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,464 adults. Partisan divisions are 30%-30%-29%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Results have a margin of error<\/a> of plus or minus 2 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates<\/a>, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See details on ABC News survey methodology here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n