Trump’s approval rating is low, but he will receive a huge military budget as the midterm elections approach
Low inflation and unemployment are both good news for the economy, but voters aren’t feeling it. That could be a blow to Republicans in the midterm elections.
Six in 10 Americans, including a sizable portion of Republicans, think President Donald Trump is becoming more erratic as he ages, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The six-day poll ended on February 23, the day before the 79-year-old president delivered his annual State of the Union address to Congress after a month of angrily scolding lawmakers and judges.
Overall, 61% of survey respondents said they described President Trump as having become “more unstable with age.” About 89% of Democrats, 30% of Republicans, and 64% of independents rate him this way.
White House press secretary Davis Ingle said the poll results were an example of a “false narrative of despair” and that Trump’s “sharpness, unparalleled energy and historic accessibility” set him apart from his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.
President Trump’s overall popularity has remained largely unchanged in recent months. About 40% of respondents in the latest poll approve of Trump’s performance as president, up 2 points from earlier this month. He started his term with a fairly high approval rating of 47%, but since April his approval rating has remained within 1-2 percentage points of current levels.
Aging of the political class
Most Americans believe that the country’s political leadership is generally too old.
Approximately 79% of poll respondents agreed with the statement that “elected officials in Washington, D.C., are too old to represent most Americans.” The average age of the U.S. Senate is approximately 64 years old, and the average age of the U.S. House of Representatives is 58 years old.
Democratic respondents were slightly more likely to want younger politicians, with 58% saying Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, 75, was too old to serve in government.
Trump returned to office in January 2025 at the age of 78, making him the oldest president in history to serve on Inauguration Day. Since then, he has announced new policies and proposals at a dizzying pace, imposing steep tariffs on imports from dozens of countries and deploying masked federal agents across the country to crack down on illegal immigration.
He has often taken an angry tone in public remarks, saying last week that he was “absolutely ashamed” that the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court had ruled many of the country’s tariffs illegal. President Trump went on to reinstate a series of new tariffs, claiming they could be imposed under separate legal authority. In November, he denounced Democratic lawmakers who called on U.S. military personnel to defy illegal orders as traitors who could face execution.
Trump attacks Biden over age and mental strength
Trump won the 2024 presidential election in part because Biden was widely seen as having lost his mental acuity as he aged in office. Biden ended his term at age 82, older than any president in U.S. history. Trump is on track to break that record and will turn 80 in June.
In a February poll, only 45% of respondents said President Trump was “mentally alert and able to handle challenges,” down from 54% in a September 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Republicans continue to view the president as sharp, with 81% of Republicans rating him that way in the latest poll, little changed from the 2023 poll. Among Democrats, the share that believes the president can meet the challenge fell from 29% to 19%. Among those who don’t identify with either party, 36% think Trump has maintained his mental strength, down from 53% in 2023.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted online among 4,638 U.S. adults, had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
