Why Trump’s Sinking Poll Numbers Matter

Plunging popularity can’t by itself defeat Trump. But it can help juice the opposition to Trumpism.

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Apr 28, 2025

The White House got an early start this morning. Minutes ago, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took to the briefing-room podium to announce a pair of executive orders: one focused on “strengthening and unleashing” American law enforcement to pursue criminals, the other directing the attorney general and homeland security secretary to “publish a list of state and local jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”

The announcement comes days after the FBI arrested a Wisconsin judge who, FBI director Kash Patel claimed, “intentionally misdirected federal agents” who were trying to arrest a Mexican migrant appearing before her court. Happy Monday.

(Composite / Photo by Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images.)

How Low Can He Go?

by William Kristol

Polls have come to matter too much. The public isn’t right about everything at every time. Leaders should have the courage of their own convictions. They shouldn’t fear getting out ahead of public opinion.

All true in principle. But in practice, polls do matter in the political world we inhabit. And so the appearance this weekend of three major new polls matters.

Here’s the bottom line of all three polls: Donald Trump is losing support. Bigly.

CNN, in the field April 17–24, has Trump with a 41 percent job approval rating—down 7 percentage points over the last two months—and a 59 percent disapproval rating. Only 22 percent of respondents “strongly” approve of his performance while 45 percent “strongly” disapprove.
The ABC News/Washington Post Ipsos survey, in the field April 18–22, finds Trump’s job approval rating at only 39 percent, down 6 percentage points from February, with 55 percent of respondents saying they disapprove. And only 21 percent of these respondents “strongly” approve of the president’s job performance, while 44 percent “strongly” disapprove.
The New York Times/Siena poll, in the field April 21–24 for their first comprehensive survey during the Trump presidency, has Trump at 42 percent approval, 54 percent disapproval, with 28 percent “strongly” approving and 45 percent “strongly” disapproving.

The numbers are pretty striking. And what’s also striking is that support for Trump’s performance on a wide range of issues has declined across the board. Obviously, he’s stronger on some issues than others—but on all of them, he’s trending down. This kind of broad disapproval is harder to reverse than if there were simply one issue harming his presidency, on which he could presumably change course. There’s no obvious silver bullet for Trump to reach for in order to restore his public standing.

So we should take heart from these new poll numbers. Lots of us have been saying that a key element in slowing, and perhaps even halting, Trump’s forced march to authoritarianism would be a marked erosion in his public support. A drop to nearly 40 percent approval at the 100-day mark is probably as good a result as we could realistically have expected.

But it’s also the case that poll numbers by themselves don’t do much. They’re not magical talismans that can be waved at Trump, like garlic at Dracula, to force him to retreat.

What the poll numbers can do is help strengthen the nerve of individuals and the will of institutions to resist Trump and Trumpism. Looking at these polls, Democrats will presumably be less hesitant in their opposition to the administration. Nongovernmental institutions—universities, law firms, businesses—may be less inclined to accede to, and more willing to stand up to, Trumpist intimidation (and, indeed, we may be seeing instances of this). Judges may be less worried about upholding the rule of law against the Trump administration.

But the biggest question over the next one hundred days is the behavior of Republican members of Congress. Their capitulation to Trump has enabled him to get as far as he has. Will they now begin to speak up against some of Trump’s deeds? More importantly still, will they begin to act against some of what Trump has done or proposes to do?

We’ll see. But we shouldn’t underestimate what’s happened. Think how grim our political landscape would look if Trump now had a 50 percent or 55 percent approval rating. The drop in public support is not sufficient to ensure a successful political counteroffensive, but it’s a necessary precondition for it.

Success in resisting and then defeating Trumpist authoritarianism now depends on acts of political leadership and civic courage. It will depend on a willingness on the part of some to step up and lead fights. Otherwise Trump’s public opinion decline will register as only a sigh of regret at what’s happening.

In Trump’s second hundred days, we won’t need more widespread lamentation about Trumpism. What we will need is more aggressive and successful confrontation of Trumpism.

With these polls as a backdrop, we might get it.

Another Hotspot Brewing

by Will Selber

India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed rivals who’ve fought three declared wars, have inched closer to a fourth, following an April 22 terrorist attack in the Jammu and Kashmir region that left more than twenty dead, most of them Indian tourists. Although Pakistan denied involvement in the attack, its government has often used terror groups to attack Indian and American forces.

Over the weekend, both sides exchanged fire near the Lines of Control, the de facto but disputed international boundary. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said those behind the attack would “be served with the harshest response.”

During my three years in Afghanistan, I often met with both Indian and Pakistani military diplomats. Each, of course, had major interests in Afghanistan, and often those interests were opposed. Both countries made it clear that they didn’t want the other to gain too much advantage, and that if their long-simmering dispute were to suddenly heat up, they were prepared to fight.

It’s been nearly three years since the last flare-up between India and Pakistan, after a car bomb killed 33 Indian soldiers. Despite their history of conflict—which could drag in neighboring China, a rival of India, a partner of Pakistan, and also a claimant to disputed territory in the Kashmir region—President Trump said that both sides would “figure it out one way or another.”

This is the kind of situation that calls for adroit diplomacy and statesmanship. Historically, the United States has sided with Pakistan over India. That has started to change recently as the Pakistani-Chinese relationship has become closer and the Chinese-American relationship has become more tense. If the Trump administration could find some way of gaining trust and good graces with New Delhi while also reducing tensions in the region, that would be the best outcome. Don’t count on it.

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AROUND THE BULWARK

This week on The Bulwark on Sunday, BILL KRISTOL talks to Just Security’s RYAN GOODMAN about Trump’s war on the courts and the arrest of a judge in Wisconsin by the FBI.
100 Days of Trump: The Fears Were Justified… Bad policies have been made worse by lawlessness, pettiness, and stupidity, observes CATHY YOUNG.
Reclaiming Patriotism from Trump’s America… On How to Fix It, Bulwark alumnus TED JOHNSON joins JOHN AVLON to break down how American pride has been weaponized, why civic education has crumbled, and how citizens can reclaim a more inclusive, aspirational patriotism.
The Pete Buttigieg Apology Tour Starts Right Now… On FYPod, MANNY FIDEL joins TIM MILLER and CAMERON KASKY for an apology to Pete after his appearance on a MAGA bro podcast: They underestimated his game.

Quick Hits

THE NERDS FIGHT BACK: As noted by Bill above, Trump’s worsening popularity may very well give some of his targets the confidence to decide not to completely capitulate to him. Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported on something rare these days: collective action in anticipation of more White House-driven authoritarianism.

Leaders of some of the nation’s most prestigious universities have assembled a private collective to counter the Trump administration’s attacks on research funding and academic independence across higher education, according to people familiar with the effort.
The informal group currently includes about 10 schools, including Ivies and leading private research universities, mostly in blue states. Strategy discussions gained momentum after the administration’s recent list of demands for sweeping cultural change at Harvard, viewed by many universities as an assault on independence.
The collective, as some are calling it, represents a separate, quiet and potentially more potent effort than recent public resolutions from university-aligned groups.

The Journal’s story comes as Harvard University continues to stand firm against Trump—and weeks after Columbia totally bent to his demands. How embarrassing for Columbia.

—Sam Stein

DECISION DAY IN CANADA: As Canadians go to the polls for parliamentary elections today, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal party holds a slight edge over Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. It’s a dramatic reversal from just a few months ago, when the Liberals—led by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—seemed to be drifting without a rudder toward a likely electoral shellacking. Trump’s declaration of trade war—and repeated suggestion of the possibility of real war—against America’s northern neighbor scrambled everything, as did the emergence of Carney as a figure seemingly capable of channeling the resultant burst of indignant nationalist sentiment and anti-American rage.

But both campaigns’ schedules were scrambled after a violent attack Saturday in Vancouver, when a man drove a car through a Filipino street festival, killing eleven people and injuring dozens more. Police who arrested the alleged driver ruled out a terrorist attack, saying that the suspect had a history of mental illness. Carney traveled to Vancouver yesterday in the wake of the tragedy, and a campaign official told Reuters he had canceled Election Day rallies in Calgary and Richmond, British Columbia.

Among those who will be avidly the Canadian election returns is Donald Trump himself, not backing off his rhetoric about an American takeover: