Turn on CNN, MSNBC, or virtually any other left-wing outlet, and you'd think President Trump's approval ratings are circling the drain. They breathlessly report every poll suggesting his numbers are in the gutter, painting his presidency as a historic failure and Trump himself as a lame duck. But, there’s something about his poll ratings that they aren’t telling you, and it’s actually quite important.
Here's the thing: Trump's approval rating just surpassed George W. Bush's at the exact same point in their second terms. On January 13, 2026, Trump is sitting at 43.9% approval in RealClearPolling's aggregated data. Is that great? I wouldn’t go that far. But George W. Bush clocked in at 42.5% on January 13, 2006, exactly twenty years earlier. But here’s the real kicker: Barack Obama trailed both of them at 42.0% at the same point in his second term on January 13, 2014.
Trump’s second-term numbers have been ahead of Obama’s since November, yet I don’t recall anyone in the mainstream media ever calling Obama a lame duck.
But, I digress. Newsweek seems to acknowledge that Trump’s approval ratings, compared to his two-term predecessors, could play a role in this year’s midterms.
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“Understanding how Trump's approval rating compares with that of his predecessors could offer significant insight and context ahead of the upcoming midterms amid the broader political dialogue in America,” the outlet reported. “The party of the president regularly loses seats in Congress during midterm elections, and House Democrats were able to gain 40 seats in 2018, during the midterms in Trump's first term.”
Trump’s numbers are also on the uptick.
“The numbers come as Trump’s approval rating has risen for the first time in months, according to two national polls,” Newsweek explains.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey, conducted online January 4 to January 5 among 1,248 U.S. adults, shows Trump’s approval climbing to 42 percent, up from 39 percent in December—which was his highest since October. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.”
Similarly, an InsiderAdvantage poll of 800 likely voters on December 20 found Trump with a net approval of +8.4 points, his strongest since August.
In that poll, 49.5 percent approved, 41.1 percent disapproved, and 9.1 percent were undecided, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points.
"President Trump and his administration are fully aware that Americans are still grappling with the ongoing impacts of Joe Biden's significant economic crisis," White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Newsweek last month. “Turning the Biden economic disaster around has informed nearly every action the Trump administration has taken since Day One, from unleashing American energy to cut gas prices to signing historic drug pricing deals to cut costs for American patients. Much work remains, and every member of the Trump administration continues to focus on recreating the historic job, wage, and economic growth that Americans enjoyed during President Trump's first term.”
Some analysts believe that bold military actions like the operation that resulted in Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro being captured helped nudge Trump’s polling higher by capturing headlines and rallying support around decisive leadership. This, of course, is why Trump’s numbers often get framed negatively even when he outperforms his predecessors. While Trump’s disapproval still exceeds his approval in the most recent polls, his ratings are still better than the media’s golden boy Obama’s were at the same point in his second term, and that says a lot.
