Data analyst aghast at latest Trump polling: 'No joke – what a disaster'

President Donald Trump's approval rating on the key issue that won him re-election has hit a dismal new low, and CNN's Harry Enten is betting things will get worse.

A new CNN poll shows the 79-year-old president's approval for his handling of the economy has hit a personal low of just 31 percent just a year and a half after voters chose him to carry through on his promise to fix inflation immediately upon returning to office, but that hasn't happened and the public is dissatisfied.

"This is no April fool's joke, this is a disaster," Enten said. "All these numbers are a disaster for President Trump. I mean, let's just talk about inflation, which is the name of the game. Okay, highest disapprovals on this inflation about this time in a presidency. Whenever you have Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter on the board and you're matching them or slightly exceeding them when it comes to inflation, you know it's bad. Look at this – 72 percent in our latest CNN poll say they disapprove of the president on inflation. Joe Biden, an average of polls at this point in his presidency, 68 percent, and Jimmy Carter, whose presidency, just like Joe Biden's, was absolutely wrecked by inflation, was at 66 percent about at this point in his presidency back in 1978."

"Donald Trump, even worse than they are," he added. "So you see it here, and the one word is or phrase I might say is, oh my goodness gracious, what a disaster."

Inflation was substantially higher during Biden's presidency than Trump's second term, but rising fuel costs associated with his Iran war are driving voter approval into the tank.

"Biden's worst number, his worst number in any poll I could find, was 72 percent disapprove of Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump," Enten said. "Right now, in our CNN poll, 76 percent, 76 percent, three in four Americans disapprove of the way that Donald Trump is handling gas prices, and again, the gas prices were higher during Biden, but the increase has been so dramatic under the last month under Donald Trump – we're talking about an increase of about a dollar – it's the highest increase that we've seen since at least 1991 in terms of raw dollars. No wonder this number is so high. He is beating or doing even worse than Joe Biden was on gas prices, which of course was such a major issue."

Trump's approval rating on the economy is historically bad compared to other presidents, Enten said.

"These are the worst in our poll – 69 percent disapprove of Donald Trump on the economy," he said. "For George W. Bush it was 57 percent, in terms of the average, Barack Obama, 56 percent. Donald Trump is crushing them on a metric you don't want to be crushing anybody on, which is disapproval ratings on the economy – he's double digits. I was looking at some other polling data also above the 57 percent to 56 percent, the worst of all time at this point. In term number two, it's the economy dragging Trump down, being, of course, accelerated by inflation being so bad, and, of course, the gas prices just adding up. It's like a pancake tower and you're just reaching the top, and this is not a tower you want to climb."

"Where does the Kalshi prediction market say that we're going on inflation chance CPI year over year is above 4 percent in any month in 2026, 64 percent [chance]," Enten added. "That would be for the first time since 2023, so the inflation tower that we're going up, it seems like there are more steps on a stairway, certainly not to heaven, more like hell, if you're the president of the United States."

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