To hear Donald Trump tell it, the American people just love his presidency. In recent weeks, he’s insisted he has “the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years.” Trump’s approval rating, he’s claimed, is in “the high 70s.”

Practically every day offers more of the same. He has the “BEST POLL NUMBERS, EVER.” His level of public support has set “a record for a Republican.” His administration “must be doing something right because we’ve got the highest poll numbers that I’ve ever had.”

The president’s allies are sticking to the same script, recently telling Americans that Trump’s approval rating is “soaring” and “skyrocketing.”

Reality, however, continues to get in the way.

• The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump’s backing down to just 42%, while just 37% support his handling of the economy.
• The latest Pew Research Center poll found Trump’s approval rating down to 40%. It also found him underwater on every major policy area. What’s more, the Pew survey found the president’s support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents down to 75% — noticeably lower than Joe Biden’s 93% support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents at this point four years ago.
• The latest poll by The Economist/YouGov found Trump’s approval rating down to 41%. It also showed him underwater on every issue.
• The latest Fox News poll showed Trump with a 44% approval rating — down 5 points from March — and he’s underwater on nearly every issue. On the economy, his support is down to 38%, while on tariffs and inflation, the president’s support is down to 33%.

(Click on any of the above links for more information on the polls’ methodologies and margins of error.)

As the incumbent approaches the 100-day mark, polling averages and research from The Washington Post and The New York Times suggested that since the dawn of modern American polling research, no president has ever fared worse at this point in his term.

There will be some who suggest this is irrelevant. While Trump occasionally pretends he’ll be able to run for a third term in 2028, the fact remains that he’s a lame-duck president who will never again appear on a national ballot. With this in mind, some will argue that his popularity — or in this case, the lack thereof — has little practical value. If he’ll never again have to face voters, what difference does it make whether the electorate likes him or not?

The answer is simple: Popular presidents wield more power; flailing presidents wield less.

This is true on the international stage — foreign officials are more likely to take seriously leaders who enjoy meaningful domestic backing — but it’s also true on Capitol Hill. As we’ve discussed, members of Congress — who, unlike the incumbent president, have to worry about re-election — care a great deal about the prevailing political winds.

If the public really were rallying behind Trump and he really did enjoy 70% support, Republican lawmakers might be that much more inclined to follow his lead, while Democratic lawmakers in competitive districts would be that much less inclined to put up a fight against the White House agenda.

But with Americans expressing their increasingly unambiguous dissatisfaction with Trump, it effectively creates a permission structure for Congress to defy the president’s wishes. In other words, the more voters turn against Trump, the harder it becomes for him to get his way — which helps explain why he and his allies are scrambling to create an alternate reality in which his support is “soaring” and “skyrocketing,” while his approval rating is in “the high 70s.”