2026-05-05T04:00:51.109Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
作者：亚伦·布莱克、艾米·奥克鲁克、科科·中岛、阿里尔·爱德华兹-莱维
发布时间：2026年5月5日，美国东部时间凌晨00:00
图片合成：阿尔贝托·米尔/CNN/盖蒂图片社
唐纳德·特朗普总统的支持率似乎创下了其任期内的历史新低——甚至比2021年1月6日国会山骚乱之后还要低。
事实上，他在CNN民调汇总中的平均支持率仅为35%，如今正逼近乔治·W·布什的支持率区间。自吉米·卡特以来，只有布什曾持续维持在35%及以下的支持率水平。
而这一切都让共和党面临着风险：仅在六个月后的2026年中期选举中，共和党就可能遭到选民的严厉谴责。
那么，我们究竟是如何走到这一步的？
特朗普重新担任总统的15个多月以来，其支持率一直处于缓慢且持续的下滑态势。但有几个关键因素尤为突出。
关键转折点
特朗普的支持率首次出现大幅下滑，几乎是在他就职后立刻发生的。
特朗普上任时的支持率是其任期内的最高点，2025年1月下旬的多项民调显示他的支持率超过50%。但他的“蜜月期”极短，支持率很快就下跌了数个百分点。
目前很难确切指出此次快速下滑的具体原因。特朗普重返白宫后的最初几天就推出了一连串单边行动。两个最有可能的诱因是：他对几乎所有1月6日骚乱参与者——甚至包括袭击警察的人——的大规模特赦，以及由极不受欢迎的埃隆·马斯克牵头推行的政府效率部（DOGE）裁员和削减政府服务的草率政策。
下一个重大转折点发生在4月初，当时特朗普大幅提高关税。他在4月2日发表的“解放日”声明，实际上等同于与世界绝大多数国家展开贸易战。（今年美国最高法院已推翻了其中多项关税政策。）
此前对关税持观望态度的美国人很快转而反对这项政策。特朗普的平均支持率从关税宣布时的45%，在一个月后降至41%。
接下来的六个月左右，局势相对稳定。尽管国会共和党通过了一项极不受欢迎的特朗普议程法案，且司法部在处理爱泼斯坦文件时处理失当。但局势再次开始恶化，民主党在2025年选举中表现强劲，以大幅优势赢得了新泽西州和弗吉尼亚州的州长竞选。
下一个爆发点出现在1月：特朗普推行的激进移民镇压政策最终导致联邦特工在明尼阿波利斯枪杀了蕾妮·古德和亚历克斯·普雷蒂。政府迅速暗示古德和普雷蒂本身存在过错，甚至将他们称为国内恐怖分子。但绝大多数美国人并不认同这一说法。
特朗普的支持率虽未出现大幅下跌，但这至少部分得益于其政府突然放弃了最激进的策略，并更换了领导层。
而现在，我们来到了当前最关键的转折点：伊朗战争。周五公布的一项民调显示，61%的美国民众认为这场战争是“错误的”。
同样，特朗普的支持率并未直线暴跌：他的支持率从2月底战争爆发时的平均38%，降至如今的35%。
但这场战争已经让特朗普的支持率出现了严重下滑——促使多年来始终坚定支持他的民众改变了立场。同时也让他的经济支持率创下新低。
在CNN民调汇总中，64%的受访者不认可他的表现。这是一项滚动平均民调，汇总了近期询问成年民众对特朗普执政表现看法的多项民调结果。这一比例高于他第一任期内几乎任何一次单独民调的结果。
他支持率低迷的原因
除了上述关键的 individual 转折点，我们还可以归纳出几个共性因素。
其一，是傲慢自大。特朗普的执政方式仿佛真的相信自己拥有他所宣称的压倒性民众授权，而非仅仅赢得了普选票的 plurality。
他推行了大量不受欢迎的政策，且这些政策往往在事前就被预料到会引发争议。他采取了一些本可能获得民众支持的政策——比如加强驱逐出境行动——却走向了美国人普遍认为“太过火”的极端，比如明尼阿波利斯的镇压行动。而或许最重要的是，他几乎凡事都采取单边行动，将所有责任都揽在自己身上。
例如，当时经济明显不稳，物价居高不下，但特朗普仍决定通过全球关税和如今的伊朗战争搅乱局势。如今美国人将长期以来的经济不满直接归咎于这些政策。
第二个关键因素是，特朗普在最重要的议题——生活成本——上损害了自己的形象。
关税已经造成了负面影响，但伊朗战争的打击更为严重。汽油价格飙升至每加仑4美元以上，让特朗普在CNN民调中的经济支持率跌至31%的历史最低点。而他本就不佳的生活成本议题支持率进一步下滑，以至于多数民调显示，70%或更多的民众不认可他在该议题上的表现。
第三个因素是，他的优先事项完全错误。
民众不满的不仅是特朗普在生活成本问题上的作为，更是认为他完全忽视了这一议题。
3月的CNN民调显示，65%的美国民众认为特朗普“在降低物价方面做得远远不够”。而哥伦比亚广播公司新闻-舆观调查民调显示，四分之三的美国人认为特朗普没有足够重视降低物价的问题。
当特朗普确实谈论经济时，他往往显得兴致缺缺。与此同时，特朗普推行了一系列民调显示美国人几乎毫无兴趣的海外军事干预行动。
3月的CNN民调显示，67%的美国民众认为特朗普没有足够关注国家最重要的问题。
最后一个因素是，民众对他的能力和行事能力的看法持续下滑。
在第一任期内（新冠疫情之前），美国经济总体表现强劲，这意味着即便有些人可能个人并不喜欢特朗普，但仍将他视为一位成功的商人，认为他能够治理好国家。
如今，这一点已经受到了质疑。皮尤研究中心的民调显示，美国人对特朗普做出正确外交政策决策的信心大幅下降。周五公布的一项新皮尤民调显示，至少60%的美国人不信任特朗普能够管理行政部门、明智地使用军事力量、做出正确的外交政策决策，或是与国会有效合作。
在一系列言语失当之后，民众对特朗普心智敏锐度和稳定性的担忧也逐渐上升。最近一项民调甚至显示，61%的美国民众以及30%的共和党人认同“特朗普随着年龄增长变得反复无常”这一说法。
总统的支持率具有多大的预测性？
中期选举通常被视为对在任总统的全民公投。虽然并不总是100%准确——比如2022年的选举就是如此——但总体而言这一规律成立。总统支持率越低，其所在政党的选举表现往往越差。
现代历史上一些最糟糕的中期选举结果，都出现在总统支持率低于50%的情况下：1946年的哈里·杜鲁门（其所在政党失去55个众议院席位）、1966年的林登·约翰逊（失去48个席位）、1982年的罗纳德·里根（失去26个席位）、1994年的比尔·克林顿（失去54个席位）、2006年的乔治·W·布什（失去30个席位）、2010年的贝拉克·奥巴马（失去64个席位）以及2018年的特朗普（失去42个席位）。
与之相反，支持率在60%及以上的总统，几乎总是只会失去不到10个席位，甚至可能赢得更多席位。
2022年是一个重大例外：当时乔·拜登支持率低迷，但选举结果却势均力敌。这在很大程度上是因为美国最高法院近期推翻了罗伊诉韦德案，以及民主党能够将选举聚焦于反对特朗普。
Charting how Trump became a historically unpopular president
2026-05-05T04:00:51.109Z / CNN
By Aaron Blake, Amy O’Kruk, Koko Nakajima, Ariel Edwards-Levy
PUBLISHED May 5, 2026, 12:00 AM ET
Photo Illustration by Alberto Mier/CNN/Getty Images
President Donald Trump appears to be more unpopular than he’s ever been – including after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
In fact, his 35% average approval rating in the CNN Poll of Polls means he’s now flirting with George W. Bush territory. Bush is the only president since Jimmy Carter to spend a sustained period of time in the mid-30s or lower.
And all of it is putting the Republican Party at risk of a severe rebuke from voters in just six months’ time in the 2026 midterm elections.
So how did we get here?
It’s been a pretty gradual, steady deterioration throughout Trump’s more than 15 months back as president. But a few dynamics stand out.
The key junctures
The first time we saw Trump’s approval rating drop significantly was … almost instantly.
Trump came into office with his best approval ratings ever, with some polls showing him above 50% in late January 2025. But he had an extremely short honeymoon, quickly shedding several points.
It’s difficult to pin down exactly what caused the quick decline. Trump’s first days back in office were a flurry of unilateral actions. Two likely culprits were his highly unpopular pardons of virtually all January 6 defendants, even those who assaulted police, and the haphazard Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts to government employees and services led by the highly unpopular Elon Musk.
The next big juncture came in early April, when Trump truly went big on his tariffs. His “Liberation Day” announcement on April 2 effectively meant a trade war with the overwhelming majority of the world. (The Supreme Court this year invalidated many of those tariffs.)
Except Americans who had previously been tariff-curious quickly turned against them. And Trump’s average approval rating dropped from 45% when the tariffs were announced to 41% a month later.
The next six months or so were relatively stable, despite the congressional GOP passing a very unpopular Trump agenda bill and the Justice Department’s mishandling of the Epstein files. But things began to slip again, and Democrats had a strong 2025 election, when they won governor’s races in both New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins.
The next flashpoint came in January, when Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown culminated in federal agents killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The administration quickly suggested Good and Pretti were at fault and even domestic terrorists. But Americans overwhelmingly disagreed.
Trump’s approval rating didn’t drop much, but that seems at least in part to how his administration suddenly backed off on its most aggressive tactics and changed leadership.
Which brings us to the big one right now: the Iran war, which a poll on Friday showed 61% of Americans labeled a “mistake.”
Again, Trump’s numbers haven’t exactly plummeted; he’s down from an average of 38% when the war started in late February to 35% today.
But the war has caused some of the bottom to fall out of Trump’s numbers – making people who had resolutely stood by him for years change their posture. It’s also sent his economic numbers to new lows.
The 64% of people who now disapprove of him in the CNN Poll of Polls, a rolling average of recent polls asking adults for their opinion of Trump’s handling of the presidency, is higher than virtually any single poll from his first term.
Why he’s unpopular
Aside from these key individual junctures, we can point to a few things.
One is hubris. Trump has governed like someone who truly believed he had the overwhelming mandate that he claimed, rather than someone who won a plurality of the popular vote.
He’s done oodles of things that were unpopular, and often predictably so. He’s taken policies that might be popular – like ramping up deportations – and gone in directions that Americans often regarded as going “too far” like the Minneapolis crackdown. And perhaps most significantly, he’s taken ownership of nearly everything by acting unilaterally.
The economy was clearly unsteady and prices were stubbornly high, for example, but Trump still decided to rock the boat with global tariffs and now the Iran war, things that Americans can now attach directly to their long-running economic discontent.
The second key dynamic is Trump hurting himself on the most important issue: cost of living.
The tariffs hurt, but the Iran war has really hurt. Gas prices spiking to over $4 per gallon have sent Trump’s economic approval rating in CNN polling to an all-time low of 31%. And his already bad numbers on the cost of living have plummeted further – to the point where most polls show 70% or more disapprove of him on that issue.
A third is just having the wrong priorities.
It’s not just that Americans don’t like what he’s done on the cost of living. It’s that they think he’s neglected the issue.
The March CNN poll showed 65% of Americans said Trump had “not gone far enough” to lower prices, and CBS News-YouGov polling has shown three-quarters of Americans say Trump has not focused enough on lowering prices.
When Trump actually does talk about the economy, he often seems bored by it. Meanwhile, Trump has pursued a series of foreign military interventions that polls showed Americans had very little interest in.
The March CNN poll showed 67% of Americans say Trump hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems.
Lastly is a declining view of his competence and wherewithal.
A mostly strong economy in his first term (until the Covid-19 pandemic) meant that people who might not have liked him personally nonetheless saw him as an accomplished businessman who could run the country.
That’s now in doubt. Pew Research Center polling has shown sharp drops in Americans’ confidence in Trump’s ability to make the right decisions in foreign policy. And a new Pew survey Friday showed at least 60% of Americans didn’t have confidence in Trump to manage the executive branch, use military force wisely, make good foreign policy decisions or work effectively with Congress.
Concerns about Trump’s mental acuity and stability have also crept up, amid a series of verbal stumbles. One recent poll even showed 61% of Americans and even 30% of Republicans agreed that Trump has “become erratic with age.”
How predictive is a president’s approval rating?
A midterm election is generally seen as a referendum on the president. That’s not always 100% the case – like in 2022 – but generally speaking, it holds. The more unpopular you are, the worse your side tends to do.
Some of the worst midterm elections in modern history came when presidents had approval ratings below 50%: Harry Truman in 1946 (his party lost 55 House seats), Lyndon Johnson in 1966 (48 seats), Ronald Reagan in 1982 (26 seats), Bill Clinton in 1994 (54 seats), George W. Bush in 2006 (30 seats), Barack Obama in 2010 (64 seats) and Trump in 2018 (42 seats).
On the flip side, presidents with approval ratings around 60% or higher have almost always lost fewer than 10 seats or even gained ground.
A big exception came in 2022, when Joe Biden was unpopular but the election was pretty even. But that owed in large part to the Supreme Court having recently overturned Roe v. Wade and Democrats being able to run against Trump.