For years, Donald Trump has presented himself as the champion of forgotten working Americans fighting against wealthy, out-of-touch elites.
A new national poll suggests voters increasingly aren't buying it.
Americans now describe Republicans as more elitist than Democrats, according to a New York Times/Siena University poll — an extraordinary reversal for a Republican Party that has spent much of the Trump era portraying Democrats as the party of wealthy coastal elites.
But that finding is only one part of a much larger problem confronting Trump.
Across a series of national polls released in September, Americans are delivering remarkably poor assessments of his presidency.
His overall approval rating has fallen into the low 30s.
His ratings on the economy and cost of living are even worse.
His Iran war remains unpopular.
And voters increasingly say they would rather put Democrats in control of Congress.
With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, Trump's polling problem is no longer confined to one issue.
It is spreading across nearly everything.
Trump Falls to 32 Percent
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted September 17–20 found Trump's job approval at just:
32 percent.
That was the lowest approval rating Reuters/Ipsos has recorded for Trump across either of his presidencies.
Trump began his second presidency in January 2025 with a 47 percent approval rating in Reuters/Ipsos polling.
He has lost 15 points since then.
Even more striking is what has happened inside his own party.
Republican approval of Trump fell from 86 percent in January to 73 percent in September.
Trump still retains the support of a large majority of Republicans.
But losing 13 points among members of your own party is significant — particularly weeks before a national midterm election.
And Reuters/Ipsos isn't an outlier.
A CNN/SSRS poll released the same week put Trump at only 33 percent approval, with 67 percent disapproving.
Different pollsters using different methodologies are arriving at the same basic conclusion:
Roughly two-thirds of the country disapproves of Trump's presidency.
The Economy Has Become Trump's Biggest Problem
Trump returned to office promising to bring prices down.
Instead, the cost of living has become one of his weakest issues.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found only:
17 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living.
That's not merely a bad number.
It means more than eight in ten Americans either disapprove or aren't willing to say they approve of Trump's performance on one of the issues that helped return him to the White House.
The deterioration is happening among Republicans as well.
In January, 70 percent of Republicans approved of Trump's handling of the cost of living.
By September, that had fallen to:
44 percent.
For the first time in the Reuters/Ipsos polling, more Republicans disapproved of Trump's handling of the cost of living than approved.
Trump's approval among Republicans on the broader economy has also fallen dramatically, from 80 percent to 56 percent.
That is potentially devastating politically because affordability was supposed to be one of Trump's strongest arguments.
He promised voters he would fix it.
Increasingly, voters say he hasn't.
Republicans Are Sour on Trump's Economy Too
Another poll reveals just how dramatically perceptions have changed.
At the beginning of 2026, the New York Times/Siena poll found 72 percent of Republican voters believed the economy was better than it had been a year earlier.
By September?
Just 29 percent said the same thing.
That's a collapse of 43 percentage points among Trump's own political base.
Americans don't experience the economy through government press releases or presidential speeches.
They experience it when they buy groceries.
They experience it when they pay rent.
They experience it when they receive a medical bill.
And they experience it every time they pull into a gas station.
Those everyday expenses appear to be overwhelming Trump's attempts to persuade Americans that the economy is performing well.
The Party of the Working Class?
Then comes perhaps the most politically embarrassing finding.
For years, Republicans have claimed that the political parties underwent a fundamental realignment.
Democrats became the party of college-educated professionals and wealthy coastal elites.
Republicans became the party of blue-collar workers.
There is some genuine demographic evidence behind that political realignment.
Pew Research Center found earlier this year that Republicans are considerably more likely than Democrats to identify themselves as working class.
Among Americans without a college degree, 72 percent of Republicans describe themselves as working class compared with 61 percent of Democrats.
Among blue-collar workers, 82 percent of Republicans identify as working class.
But identifying as working class and being perceived as representing working people are not necessarily the same thing.
The Times/Siena poll found voters now see Republicans as more elitist than Democrats.
Voters also described Republicans as more extreme and more corrupt.
That represents a serious problem for a movement built around populism.
Trump's political identity depends heavily upon the idea that he is fighting powerful institutions on behalf of ordinary Americans.
If voters instead begin viewing Trump's Republican Party as another political establishment serving wealthy and powerful interests, one of MAGA's most successful political narratives begins to fall apart.
Trump's Iran War Isn't Helping
Trump's problems aren't confined to domestic policy.
Only 34 percent of Americans approve of the strikes against Iran, according to Reuters/Ipsos.
And Americans aren't convinced Trump's repeated assurances that the conflict will end soon.
Approximately 82 percent believe the conflict will continue for an extended period.
That includes roughly three-quarters of Republicans.
Trump returned to office portraying himself as the president who would keep America out of prolonged foreign wars.
Instead, the United States is involved in another Middle Eastern conflict that has disrupted energy markets and contributed to higher fuel prices.
Those two problems are now feeding each other.
An unpopular war is contributing to an unpopular economy.
Immigration Isn't Saving Him
Immigration has historically been one of Trump's strongest issues.
Even there, the national numbers have deteriorated.
Reuters/Ipsos found 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of immigration while 55 percent disapprove.
Among Republicans, however, Trump remains strong: 79 percent approve of his immigration policies.
That illustrates Trump's larger political problem.
The policies that remain popular within his Republican base are not necessarily popular with the broader electorate.
Winning overwhelming support from committed MAGA voters doesn't compensate for losing independents, moderates and other voters outside that coalition.
Democrats Open an Eight-Point Congressional Lead
All of this is beginning to show up in the congressional ballot.
Reuters/Ipsos asked registered voters which party they would support in the November midterms.
The result:
Democrats: 43 percent
Republicans: 35 percent
An eight-point Democratic advantage.
It was the largest Democratic lead Reuters/Ipsos had measured during 2026.
The Times/Siena poll produced an even larger result, with voters preferring Democratic control of Congress by an 11-point margin.
Those national numbers do not predict which party will control Congress.
House elections are decided district by district, while Senate races depend on the particular states holding elections.
But they do provide a clear measurement of the national political environment.
And right now, that environment is deeply unfavorable to Trump.
This Isn't One Bad Poll
Every president gets bad polls.
Every polling organization produces occasional results that differ from others.
That's why individual polls shouldn't be treated as election results.
But Trump's problem isn't one poll.
Reuters/Ipsos:
32 percent approval.
CNN/SSRS:
33 percent approval.
PBS/NPR/Marist:
39 percent approval.
Reuters/Ipsos finds Democrats leading the congressional ballot by eight points.
Times/Siena finds voters preferring Democratic control of Congress by 11 points.
Poll after poll is identifying the same vulnerabilities:
The economy.
The cost of living.
Iran.
Immigration.
Trump's overall job performance.
And increasingly, the Republican Party itself.
The Populist Brand Is Cracking
Perhaps the most interesting development isn't Trump's 32 percent approval rating.
It's the changing perception of what Trump's Republican Party represents.
Trump built MAGA around a simple political story.
The elites had abandoned ordinary Americans.
Washington didn't care about them.
The political establishment didn't listen to them.
Trump did.
That message helped transform the Republican coalition and brought millions of working-class voters into Trump's movement.
Now voters are looking at the Republican Party controlling Washington and increasingly reaching a different conclusion.
They see a president whose approval rating has fallen into the low 30s.
They see prices they still can't afford.
They see another war in the Middle East.
They see Republicans controlling the federal government.
And according to the latest Times/Siena poll, when Americans are asked which political party looks more like the elite, they increasingly point toward Trump's Republicans.
For a political movement built on the claim that it represents forgotten working Americans against the establishment, that may be one of the most damaging poll numbers of all.