President Donald Trump's standing with independent voters has deteriorated sharply across multiple national polls, with recent data showing record-low approval and steep declines since the start of his second term.

As independents are often decisive in midterm elections, sustained declines could reshape the political landscape heading into 2026. Republicans' electoral prospects—particularly in competitive House and Senate races—could be altered if independent voters continue to shift away from the president.

Key Points

• Civiqs tracking shows Trump at 30 percent approval and 63 percent disapproval among independents—a net -33, which is down from -5 at the start of his term, a 38-point negative swing.
• A May 29 to June 1 Economist/YouGov poll finds independents at -50 net approval, an all-time low for that pollster, marking a 46-point drop from early 2025 levels in the same series.
• PRRI data shows independent favorability at 25 percent in May, down from 35 percent in early 2025.
• An AP-NORC analysis finds independent support has fallen to about one-quarter, from roughly four in 10 during the 2024 election period.

Multiple national polls and datasets published through June 2026 show Trump's approval and favorability among independent voters falling sharply during his second term across different methodologies and surveys.

While the president returned to office with relatively competitive numbers among independents, consistent declines across multiple pollsters now point to a structural erosion rather than short-term volatility.

What Polls Show

A clearer picture of the shift emerges when the polling is viewed longitudinally, with each dataset pointing to the same trend: a steady, and in some cases steep, movement away from Trump among independents.

Net approval ratings are calculated by subtracting those who approve of Trump's job performance from those who disapprove.

Civiqs Tracking Shows Sustained Downward Trend

The longest-running dataset comes from Civiqs, which maintains a rolling national tracker based on more than 110,000 responses collected between Trump's second inauguration on January 20, 2025, and mid-June 2026.

At the start of Trump's second term, independents were narrowly negative:

• 44 percent approved, 49 percent disapproved (net -5)

By June 2026, those numbers had shifted dramatically:

• 30 percent approved, 63 percent disapproved (net -33)

That represents a 38-point swing away from approval, a large movement for a group that typically shifts gradually over time.

Because Civiqs uses rolling sampling and statistical smoothing rather than single snapshots, the trend reflects a sustained change rather than a single polling blip.

The depth of the decline also becomes clearer at the state level, where Civiqs data shows Trump underwater across much of the map, not only in reliably Democratic states.

Economist/YouGov Poll Hits Record Low

Weekly tracker polling from the Economist/YouGov series shows a similar, and even sharper, deterioration.

In its May 29 to June 1 survey of 1,604 U.S. adults, the pollster found Trump's net approval among independents at -50, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

That result, which was an all-time low within the polling series, contrasts with the beginning of Trump's second term. In a poll of 1,577 adults conducted January 26-28, 2025—with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 points—independents were only slightly negative, giving Trump a net approval of -4.

Taken together, the two polls chart a 46-point deterioration in Trump's standing among independents over roughly 16 months.

In a previously emailed statement to Newsweek, YouGov's Allen Houston described the rating as "a record-low among Independents for either term." He noted that at a comparable point in Trump's first term, independents were only slightly negative at -3 net approval.

Houston argued the scale of the decline was historically unusual. He said Trump's current standing had fallen so far that the closest comparison was no longer independents from his first term, whose net approval never dropped below -30.

Instead, he suggested the president's numbers among independents now resemble how Democrats viewed Trump at the outset of his first term, when his net approval stood at -54, with 13 percent approving and 67 percent disapproving.

AP-NORC Analysis Shows Structural Shift

The most detailed view of how this shift has unfolded over time comes from an AP-NORC analysis published in June.

Rather than a single poll, the study aggregates 21 separate surveys conducted between July 2024 and April 2026, drawing on a combined sample of 4,836 independents across five time periods.

Its findings show a broad-based erosion in support:

• Around the 2024 election, roughly four in 10 independents supported Trump.
• By spring 2026, support had fallen to about one-quarter.

The analysis also highlights where the decline has been most pronounced. Independents without a college degree—once a relatively strong pro-Trump bloc—saw support fall from roughly half around the election to about one-quarter during 2026.

Across demographic groups, much of the initial advantage Trump built among independents during the 2024 campaign appears to have dissipated, with views now uniformly negative regardless of education level.

Notably, researchers found that independents' views have continued to shift during Trump's presidency, in contrast to the more stable, entrenched positions of Republicans and Democrats.

PRRI Data Shows Declining Favorability

Separate data from the Public Religion Research Institute points to a similar decline in personal favorability.

The PRRI survey, conducted May 1-18, included 5,469 adults nationwide and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 1.53 percentage points. It found that 25 percent of independents viewed Trump favorably.

That marks a drop from 35 percent in March 2025, indicating a 10-point decline in roughly a year.

PRRI's methodology combines a large national sample drawn largely from Ipsos's KnowledgePanel, supplemented by opt-in respondents to boost representation in smaller states, with weighting to produce a representative national sample.

While favorability is not identical to job approval, the trajectory matches other datasets: Independent opinion has moved in a consistently negative direction.

A Converging Picture Across Pollsters

While each poll uses different methods—rolling tracking, weekly opt-in panels, large-scale probability samples or aggregated datasets—the direction of travel is consistent.

These trends were found across all four sources:

• Approval and favorability among independents have declined significantly.
• The scale of the drop ranges from about 10 to 40 points, depending on the measure and time frame.
• Current levels place Trump deeply underwater with independents, often by margins exceeding 30 or even 40 points.

That convergence strengthens the overall signal. In polling analysis, one-off results can be noisy, but when multiple methodologies point to the same conclusion, it suggests a genuine shift in public opinion rather than a statistical artifact.

What the White House Says

When approached for comment on the latest polling, the White House pointed to what it described as the "ultimate poll"—Trump's 2024 election victory.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, spokesperson Davis Ingle said almost 80 million Americans had "overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda."

He added that, in the administration's view, no president "has accomplished more for the American people."

Ingle went on to argue that Trump is "working tirelessly" on key priorities, including creating jobs, cooling inflation and improving housing affordability.

He said the president had already made "historic progress not only in America but around the world," adding that "this is just the beginning" as the administration's agenda continues to take effect.

What Comes Next

Whether this erosion persists will likely depend on political and economic developments in the months ahead.

Polling suggests issues such as inflation, the broader economy and foreign policy have weighed on public perceptions, areas where presidential approval often closely tracks public sentiment.

For now, the trajectory is clear: Independent voters—who helped shape the 2024 election outcome—have become markedly more skeptical of the president during his second term.

With midterm elections approaching, that shift could determine outcomes in close races.