CNN host Kaitlan Collins put President Donald Trump’s polling problem on screen on Monday, August 31, 2026, showing viewers of “The Source” a graphic in which the president’s net approval sat at minus 32 percentage points — a figure roughly 11 points worse than the minus 21 the Republican Party registered in the network’s own polling.
Trump trails by double digits in nearly every poll and is performing worse than his party as a whole, Collins said, and she argued that the gap carries real consequences because the president has chosen to make himself the main attraction of the fall campaign. His plan to stage a special Republican convention in advance of the November midterms is an unorthodox one, and it turns his own performance in office into an implicit ballot question in hundreds of separate House and Senate contests.
The idea has not won over the whole party. “Actually, some Republicans aren’t behind it because they think it’s taking them off the campaign trail,” Collins said of the convention plan. Maggie Haberman, a New York Times journalist and CNN commentator, said the gathering would not only drag candidates out of their home districts but also hand Democrats new footage for attack ads.
A Number That Matches a Career Low
The CNN poll behind that graphic put Trump’s overall approval at 34 percent, level with the worst mark of his career, which he recorded after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021. The same poll found 50 percent of Americans strongly disapproving of him, the highest figure of his two terms, and 15 percent strongly approving, also a record. Just 31 percent said they had a favorable view of the Republican Party with him at its head. The survey was carried out for CNN by SSRS between July 23 and 27.
Haberman noted that private surveys do not always mirror what shows up in public data. “There is no polling where this president is popular,” Haberman said. She added that not a single poll puts him in the clear on affordability.
Affordability Surfaces in the Oval Office
Haberman noted that “affordability” was said over and over at the president’s Oval Office healthcare event that same day, despite Trump having brushed the issue off as a hoax on multiple occasions. Republicans in tough districts, she said, want to spend the fall talking about anything but that.
The money behind the convention effort deepens the risk. Reporting published in late August said Trump intends to draw on his MAGA Inc. super PAC to fund a stretch of television spots promoting his own record, designed to run as a backdrop to those House and Senate races.
Other Pollsters Find the Same Trend
For Republicans trying to protect narrow majorities in Congress on November 3, the president’s political brand looks more and more like a drag. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,167 adults nationwide, a four-day survey that closed on August 31, found 33 percent approving of how he is doing the job. It also found 46 percent of Democrats calling themselves very enthusiastic about voting in November, against 31 percent of Republicans.
Polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) offered no relief either. Among the 1,000 respondents questioned August 21-26, approval of the president’s job performance stood at 32 percent, down a point from the university’s March survey. Disapproval hit 64 percent — close to two-thirds — and 54 percent said they disapproved strongly. Results in the poll were subject to a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Foreign policy is dragging as well. On the war with Iran, 68 percent of UMass respondents said Trump is not handling it well, against 25 percent who rated his handling somewhat or very good. The conflict is entering its seventh month — far longer than the roughly one month Trump predicted at the outset.
Prices are causing him trouble too. Better than half of those polled by UMass said the president is not handling inflation well at all, while 22 percent credited him with doing somewhat or very well. Annual inflation registered 3.7 percent in July according to the personal consumption expenditures price index, the measure the Federal Reserve favors — 1.2 points higher than the January 2025 reading, when Trump took office again on a promise to push down the cost of living.
The White House Response
On Truth Social, the president has attacked what he calls fake polls deployed by the press — a version of the claim he has made for years, that bad numbers are cooked up by people who oppose him.
Trump’s annoyance with Haberman has a long history. He unloaded on her in late August, mangling her name into a slur, after a story she wrote with three colleagues revealed that he intends to stay away from the Ground Zero ceremony marking 25 years since the September 11 attacks. He had reportedly hoped to speak at the event, but the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, its organizer, has not allowed speeches since 2012. That same reporting said he intends to be at the Irish Open that weekend.
Collins came back to the president’s agenda the following night, handing the September 1 broadcast of “The Source” over to his all-in bet on data centers. The 46-minute episode featured Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who appeared live as his quarrel with Vice President JD Vance grew personal — one more sign that, with November 3 approaching, the campaign is playing out mostly on Trump’s terrain and, more and more, over his numbers.