Harry Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, told anchor John Berman on “CNN News Central” on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, that President Donald Trump has become the most unpopular president heading into a midterm election on record, two weeks before voters go to the polls on Nov. 3.
Four October surveys went up on Enten’s screen: NBC at minus 32, ABC at minus 33, Reuters/Ipsos at minus 35 and the Pew Research Center at minus 38. Truman had held the previous worst mark on record, with a net approval that reached minus 30 in the same stretch before a midterm; all four numbers sit below it.
“This is a five-alarm Trumpster fire – that’s what we’re talking about,” Enten said.
Both Those Presidents Lost Congress
The Reuters/Ipsos figure marks the lowest point 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.
Berman asked whether the numbers were an anomaly. Enten said they were not, and that the pattern repeated poll after poll.
Enten has also previously reported that Trump carries the highest “strongly disapprove” rating of any president going into a midterm. Searching for a historical parallel, he landed on Truman and George W. Bush, each at minus 15 or lower around a midterm. The president’s party lost control of the House and the Senate both times.
Nothing Close Back to Roosevelt
Enten called the president’s numbers “laughably bad” in an Oct. 9 segment. New Pew polling had just put his net approval 38 points underwater, a record low before a midterm. He searched back through Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt and found nothing close.
The other numbers he cited that day: Reuters/Ipsos at 33 points underwater, an earlier Ipsos survey from the previous month at 34, CNN’s own poll at 34, and an Associated Press poll at 38, matching Pew. No other president before a midterm, Enten said, had even reached minus 31.
“No president I’ve ever seen is in a worse position before a midterm election than President Trump,” Enten said.
The Independents Who Walked Away
The steepest drop has come among independents, who gave Trump a minus 54 in the Reuters/Ipsos survey. Pew’s validated voter research found those same voters split evenly between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
By the Oct. 9 segment, the president stood 57 points underwater with independents, and Enten said he was struggling 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 would all but guarantee Democrats win back the House. Trump’s standing is also why Democratic chances of capturing the Senate keep climbing, he said.
“This president, as unpopular as he is, is dragging Republicans underwater,” Enten said.
Energy Prices and a Tough Map
The war Trump launched with Iran in February 2026 drove up energy prices, and his political fortunes have deteriorated since. The economy and his handling of it rank near the top of voters’ concerns.
On the generic congressional ballot, Democrats hold an 8-point lead in the polling average. Several House districts are now considered competitive after Trump carried them by double digits in 2024.
The environment is about as tough as one could expect, said Carlos Curbelo, the former Republican congressman who lost his competitive Florida seat during Trump’s first midterm elections in 2018.
“There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House—not in recent weeks, anyway,” Curbelo said.
Voters have never faced a clearer choice, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said, pointing to the president’s agenda on one side and, on the other, what he called the Democrats’ extreme liberal policies and obstruction.
“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.