Donald Trump has received plenty of bad poll numbers during his second term.

This one is different.

A reader survey conducted by Mirror US asked approximately 15,000 participants to assess Trump's decision-making — and roughly 96 percent selected the description “dumbest president ever.”

That is an extraordinary number.

It also needs an important disclaimer.

This was not a scientific national opinion poll, and the results should not be interpreted as showing that 96 percent of Americans hold that opinion.

It was a voluntary reader survey conducted by Mirror US, meaning the people who chose to participate are not necessarily representative of the American electorate.

Still, 15,000 responses made it a sizable reader survey — and the result was overwhelmingly one-sided.

Readers Didn't Hold Back

Mirror US reported that participants were asked about Trump's decision-making as the country approaches the 2026 midterm elections.

The responses accompanying the survey were similarly harsh, with commenters criticizing Trump's judgment, intellect and temperament.

Those comments represent the opinions of individual readers, not objective assessments of Trump's intelligence.

But the poll arrives at a moment when Trump's standing in conventional national polling has also deteriorated.

Scientific Polls Tell a More Useful Story

Unlike an online reader survey, professionally conducted national polls attempt to construct samples representative of the broader population.

Those surveys aren't producing anything remotely resembling a 96 percent rejection of Trump.

They are, however, showing substantial dissatisfaction with his presidency.

A recent NBC News poll found Trump's job approval at 41 percent among registered voters.

The same survey found 55 percent saying Trump's policies had worsened economic conditions, compared with 26 percent who believed they had improved them.

Other recent national surveys have similarly shown Trump's approval underwater.

Those numbers provide a much better measurement of Trump's actual standing with Americans than an opt-in website survey.

A Perfect Internet Headline — With an Asterisk

“96 percent think Trump is the dumbest president ever” is almost irresistible as a headline.

But the asterisk matters.

The poll doesn't demonstrate that virtually the entire country believes Trump is unintelligent. It demonstrates that virtually everyone who participated in this particular Mirror US reader survey chose that answer.

That's a very different claim.

The remarkable part isn't that an online audience produced an unscientific result.

It's the scale of the response.

Approximately 15,000 people participated, and according to Mirror US, roughly 14,400 of them selected the same answer.

That makes the survey an interesting snapshot of the publication's participating audience — but not a measurement of America as a whole.

The Real Polling Is Bad Enough

Trump doesn't need an online reader poll to demonstrate that he is facing political dissatisfaction.

Scientific national polling already shows substantial disapproval of his presidency, concern about the economy and frustration over the direction of the country.

Those are numbers Republican candidates will be watching closely as November approaches.

The Mirror survey adds something different.

It doesn't tell us what America thinks.

It tells us what thousands of Mirror readers think.

And on this particular question, they weren't exactly divided.