As President Donald Trump deals with lawsuits, the impact of his tariff plans and more, new polling data indicates that his approval rating is slipping. Although he remains popular among Republicans, some of the data even showed his rating weakening among that demographic.
For example, the latest TIPP Insights poll – conducted between April 30 and May 2 among 1,400 adults – showed that Trump’s approval rating among conservative voters fell from 77% in early April to 72% by the start of May. Additionally, the latest ActiVote poll – conducted between April 1-30 among 576 registered voters – found that his approval rating among moderate-right and right-wing voters slipped from 91% to 88% last month.
“A drop in Donald Trump's approval among conservatives shows potential cracks in his base, potentially weakening his ability to unify the Republican base and energize turnout ahead of the 2026 midterm elections,” said Newsweek.
At the same time, Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin roundup of polls regarding Trump approval ratings said this week that: “An old pattern has re-emerged: his haters are increasingly more passionate than his supporters.” Data from the Silver Bulletin showed a general dip in the president’s approval ratings since he was inaugurated earlier this year.
Despite the drops in popularity among right-leaning voters, Trump’s approval rating in that demographic remains high at this point.
“Nobody really just shrugs their shoulders about Trump,” said Andy Smith, director of the University New Hampshire Survey Center, in an interview with WWL’s Tommy Tucker this week, adding that “a lot of that’s just driven by your party and where you get your news from.”
Smith noted that, for around the past decade, Americans haven’t been very enthusiastic about any presidential candidates.
“Over the last three presidential elections, we saw that neither candidate had high favorability ratings going into the election… in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Each year they were the two least liked presidential candidates in history – and then they broke each other’s records year after… election after election.”
Smith also explained that the U.S. is currently going through a shift when it comes to political parties.
“The old conservative Republican Party, small government, free trade, that sort of stuff, that’s going away because Trump’s remaking this party into something different,” he told Tucker. “It’s kind of like we’re seeing the base of America, the middle of America – blue-collar voters, the middle-class voters – shifting from the Democratic party to the Republican party.”
Still, economic issues impact those voters. Fox News contributor Karl Rove, a longtime figure in conservative U.S. politics, discussed concerns about tariffs with the network recently. In response, Trump called Rove a “total loser.”
“I don’t need to have Karl Rove of FoxNews to tell me what to do,” said the president. “The guy’s a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!”