President Donald Trump returned to office riding a self-proclaimed historical landslide, but he has tumbled to new lows in support less than a year into his second term.
The now-79-year-old president declared the election had granted him "an unprecedented and powerful mandate" with “the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda," but 11 months after returning to the White House his support appears as shallow as ever, according to CNN's Aaron Blake.
"Trump’s claims were vastly overstated at the time," Blake wrote. "But a year later, they’re virtually impossible to reconcile with Trump’s reality."
His overall approval ratings have plummeted under the weight of widespread economic anxiety, but his hardcore support has collapsed dramatically.
"A series of recent polls has shown this 'strongly approve' number sinking to around 1 in 5 Americans," Blake wrote. "That’s a new low for his second term in virtually every poll, and many polls show it’s rivaling the lowest readings from his first term, too."
NBC News-SurveyMonkey found over the weekend that Trump's strong approval dropped to 21 percent, down from 26 percent in April, and even MAGA Republicans who strongly approved of him dropped off from 78 percent to 70 percent, and a series of polls taken this month measured his strong approval rating between 18 percent and 22 percent – with one outlier.
"One recent poll showed something somewhat different: the Marist University poll for NPR and PBS News last month," Blake wrote. "It showed Trump’s strong approval rating a bit higher, at 26 percent. Unlike these other polls, that was higher than it was for much of Trump’s first term, according to Marist’s polling."
"But it was still a new second-term low," he added. "And it’s actually similar to his number after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when Trump’s support fell to new lows."
Trump has rarely enjoyed majority support, but he has derived his power from the size and devotion of his base, which has kept Republican lawmakers in line – but Blake said the weakening strength of his support could change that dynamic.
"The danger for Trump now is that Republicans are beginning to see him as a lame duck, and they don’t fear political consequences of breaking with him as much," Blake wrote. "Having the strong support of only 1 in 5 Americans isn’t going to suddenly open the floodgates for Republicans to break with Trump. But it does suggest his truly devoted base is looking about as small as ever."