Trump’s Plummeting Popularity

Our two latest polls dramatize how much public support Donald Trump has lost over the last year.

Both polls of North Carolina voters were taken at the end of September. One surveyed voters who are registered Unaffiliated and the other, voters in the 50 most rural counties.

Most striking to me is the 16-point drop in Trump’s approval rating in the rural counties, where he’s always been strongest.

In a poll we did in those same counties over a year ago, in August 2025, Trump had a rating of 56% approve and 48% disapprove.

Today, he has fallen to 42% approve and 50% disapprove.

The percentage of rural voters who strongly approve of him is down 13 points, from 38% to 25%.

Unaffiliated voters statewide are even more negative: 65% disapprove of him and only 33% approve.

There’s clearly a “Trump drag” in the mid-term elections: 46% of the Unaffiliated voters say their vote this year will be “a signal of opposition to President Trump,” only 18% say it will be “a signal of support for President Trump” and 29% say their vote will “have nothing to do with President Trump.”

That’s a big part of why Roy Cooper leads Michael Whatley 50-35% among Unaffiliateds and why Democrats lead Republicans 46-33% in state legislative preference.

Why has Trump dropped so dramatically?

It’s the economy - and prices.

Asked how they rate Trump’s work on “lowering prices,” 76% give him a negative rating and only 21%, positive.

Asked whether Trump’s policies have hurt or helped economic conditions, 65% say hurt and 29%, helped.

The rural-voters poll show how much ground Trump and Republicans have lost on people’s cost-of-living concerns. In August 2025, 50% of those voters said Trump and the GOP understand their struggles “a lot” or “some;” today, only 39% say that.

The Trump/GOP strategy this year seems to be firing up the base by livestreaming executions, deporting children and obsessing over transgender people.

Voters seem to have other things on their minds.

You can read see the overall results of the Unaffiliateds poll here and the crosstabs - the breakdown by age, gender, race, region, party, etc - here.

Rural poll results are here and crosstabs here.

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