CNN’s chief numbers man reached for a fire-alarm metaphor to describe where the president now stands with American voters.
Harry Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, told viewers of “CNN News Central” on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, that President Donald Trump had taken from Harry Truman the record for most unpopular president heading into a midterm election — and that he had done it in four separate polls, two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms.
“This is a five-alarm Trumpster fire – that’s what we’re talking about,” Enten told John Berman, the program’s anchor.
Reuters/Ipsos put the president’s net approval at minus 35, the lowest of his presidency in that survey, a long fall from the plus 6 he carried in January 2025, the first month of his second term. Among independent voters, the same poll had him at minus 54. A Reuters/Ipsos survey released Monday, Oct. 19, pegged his approval at 31 percent, described as the lowest recorded across either of his two terms.
Four Polls, All Worse Than Truman
Four October surveys went up on the screen behind Enten. NBC had the president at minus 32 and ABC at minus 33, while Reuters/Ipsos measured minus 35 and the Pew Research Center minus 38. All four put Trump below Truman, who sat at minus 30 in the same stretch before a midterm, the previous worst on record. Truman’s minus 30 came in October 1946 — the year Democrats lost their majorities in both the House and the Senate.
Berman asked whether the numbers were an anomaly. Enten said they were not, and that the pattern repeated poll after poll. He has also reported that Trump carries the highest “strongly disapprove” rating of any president going into a midterm.
Truman and George W. Bush came nearest in the historical record Enten searched, each sinking to minus 15 or lower around a midterm. Both men then watched their party lose control of the House and the Senate. Historically, Enten said, approval that low before a midterm has meant both chambers go down with the president.
Vote Like I’m on the Ballot
Enten called the president’s numbers “laughably bad” on Oct. 9, after new Pew polling put his net approval 38 points underwater, a record low before a midterm. “No president I’ve ever seen is in a worse position before a midterm election than President Trump,” Enten said.
Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt both turned up in the precedent he hunted for, and neither came close. Other polls at that point had Reuters/Ipsos 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, Enten said, had even reached minus 31 before a midterm.
The steepest drop came among independents, who split evenly between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, according to Pew validated voter research. Enten put Trump 57 points underwater with that group on the Oct. 9 segment, struggling to find adjectives for the plunge.
Trump has urged supporters to “vote like I’m on the ballot.” Enten said Democrats were begging voters to do exactly that, because a midterm run as a referendum on the president all but guarantees Democrats win back the House — and because the president’s standing is the reason Democratic chances of capturing the Senate keep climbing.
At a rally in Kansas on Monday, Oct. 19, Trump told supporters: “All you have to do is turn out. If you turn out, we win.” He has vowed to send $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress, and he has claimed, without evidence, that Democrats will cheat.
Speaking to reporters earlier in October about midterm losses, Trump said: “For whatever reason, I don’t understand it, nobody does. Nobody’s been able to explain it. Whoever wins the presidency, Republican or Democrat, automatically does poorly in the midterms.”
A War Without a Clear End
The war with Iran, which began Feb. 28, has run nearly eight months with no clear end in sight. Voter frustration over the cost of living and the war has been cited as a driver of the president’s declining popularity.
An Ipsos poll released in October found a large majority of Americans do not believe Trump would accept the midterm results if Republicans suffer losses.
Dragging Republicans Underwater
“This president, as unpopular as he is, is dragging Republicans underwater,” Enten said.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle offered a different reading to the Daily Beast: “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 the choice facing voters has never been clearer — the president’s agenda against what he called the Democrats’ extreme liberal policies and obstruction.
Democrats led the generic congressional ballot by 8 points in the RealClearPolling average at the time. Several House districts the president carried by double digits in 2024 now rate as competitive.
Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman who lost his competitive Florida seat in Trump’s first midterm elections in 2018, said the environment is about as tough as one could expect. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House—not in recent weeks, anyway,” Curbelo said.
