Comment: On once-winning issues, Trump losing popular support
Published 1:30 am Monday, January 26, 2026
By Nia-Malika Henderson / Bloomberg Opinion
On the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Donald Trump declared in a low-energy press conference that America is the hottest country in the world. He flashed a thick stack of pages that, he said, listed his accomplishments, among them renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
Yet in the first year of his second term, Americans have grown cold on Trump, souring on his handling of the major aspects of his presidency.
Elected on claims that he would reduce prices, deport millions and bring calm and order to a world on fire, Trump begins the second year of his second term with prices still high, violent images of immigration operations flooding social media, and the world on edge; often because of comments he himself has made, whether it’s “running” Venezuela or taking Greenland “the hard way.”
Because Trump has always been obsessed with polls, it makes sense to look at where he began and where he stands now. Overall, Trump entered the White House for a second time with some of his highest numbers. He enters the second year of his second term in a far different place.
Cost of living: About a month into Trump’s second term, Americans began to turn negative on what he was, or more pointedly, wasn’t doing to address the cost of living. At his inauguration, only 36% of Americans disapproved of Trump’s approach to the economy, but just one month later 47% did.
So, what happened? Well, Americans were buying things, like groceries, and trying to buy things like houses, and feeling the same squeeze as before. But Trump was barely focused on it. Instead, the new president was palling around with billionaire Elon Musk, who was wantonly firing federal workers in a chaotic spree that had little to do with what people wanted out of a Trump presidency.
Trump worsened his standing on cost-of-living issues by announcing a raft of tariffs on “Liberation Day,” April 9, a move Americans have felt as a tax hike. Trump’s numbers appear to have stabilized for now, but that’s probably due less to his rambling speeches on “affordability” than because he has a solid base of ride-or-die supporters.
Immigration: Trump has turned his strength into a weakness, seeing a 12-point surge in his disapproval numbers, from 39% to 51% over the last year.
He delivered what voters wanted by shutting down the border and stopping the influx of immigrants, an issue that had dogged Democrats, most notably former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris as she sought the White House.
But it’s a different story when it comes to his promised campaign of mass deportation. The chaos and cruelty on display have been called out by even some of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, like podcaster Joe Rogan. Rogan called the March deportation of Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist and asylum seeker from Venezuela, to the notorious El Salvador prison CECOT, “horrific.” Then there was Alligator Alcatraz, announced in June. “It’s a little controversial, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump said on his July visit.
The second half of the year saw the deployment of ICE officers and National Guard troops in several blue cities. By November, even the Pope seemed to think things had gone too far.
The killing of Renee Good and its aftermath, including chaotic protest scenes and increased military presence, will continue to erode Trump’s numbers on what had been a good issue for him and his party.
Foreign policy: Trump’s antagonism toward traditional allies has not gone over well with Americans. His insistence that Canada should become the 51st state, even before his inauguration, exposed his expansionist ambitions.
The president’s imperial aspirations have helped make foreign policy, typically a back-burner issue for voters, a bigger concern for average Americans. His initial standing, split between approval and disapproval, dropped early on and has flatlined since. Some 37% disapproved of Trump’s handling of foreign policy a year ago. Now, 51% disapprove.
In February, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance teamed up against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a televised meeting, berating him for lack of gratitude, as the war Trump promised to end on “day one” of his presidency raged on. Trump also suggested that the U.S. would own and control Gaza and turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East. The summer strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and October’s Gaza ceasefire did little to move Trump’s numbers. His threats to take Greenland won’t help.
It’s also possible that part of what voters dislike is Trump’s focus on foreign affairs at the expense of domestic kitchen-table issues. The last 12 months featured several contentious or too-cozy meetings in the Oval Office, even as the U.S. economy showed increasing signs of weakness. (For all Trump’s boasting about the U.S. stock market, the reality is that international stocks did even better. )
Barring a major course-correction — or a major economic boom — Trump’s negative poll numbers will likely continue to dog him, and his party, as they seek to defend control of government in the midterms.
Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.
