Fucking dumpster fire.......

Americans give Trump low marks on handling of economy as midterms likely to center on affordability

Sixty-one percent of voters told a CNN poll released Friday that they disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy.

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

Americans are increasingly holding Donald Trump responsible for an economy they give low marks. And with the midterms now just under 10 months away, they have less faith than ever in the president’s ability to make things better.

Sixty-one percent of Americans in a CNN poll released Friday said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, tied for the worst mark of the president’s career in the White House as he approaches the one-year mark of his second term. And just 42 percent of respondents think the economy will be very good or somewhat good in a year’s time, down from 56 percent of adults expressing that optimism when Trump returned to office in January 2025.

Americans overwhelmingly cast the economy and stubbornly high cost of living as the most important issue facing the country, standing at 20 points higher than the second-ranked issue, the state of American democracy.

The numbers come as Republicans work to recalibrate their political messaging around affordability ahead of the upcoming midterms, in which Trump has conceded the party in power may be hard-pressed to retain their governing trifecta.

In the last few weeks, Trump has proposed temporarily capping credit card interest rates — a move unpopular among GOP leadership — scrapped Biden-era fuel economy requirements and released a new health care framework calling for, among other things, greater pricing transparency from insurance companies.

And the White House got good news in this week’s inflation report, which showed prices climbing at a lower rate than expected in December. “LOW and UNDER CONTROL,” the White House proclaimed on X.

“President Trump is making America affordable again through his proven economic formula of powerful tariffs, fair trade deals, massive middle-class tax cuts, energy dominance and aggressive deregulation,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a White House briefing Thursday. “The overwhelmingly positive economic data released this week underscores the significant progress the president has already delivered.”

But Trump has struggled to stay on message, and even Republicans say he hasn’t necessarily delivered on the economy. Just roughly 4 in 10 GOP respondents in a January AP-NORC poll said he had improved the cost of living since returning to the White House.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CNN poll was conducted by web and telephone survey Jan. 9-12, with a random sample of 1,209 adults. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.