President Donald Trump’s net approval rating has dropped to about -26 in the latest Economist/YouGov poll, the weakest reading the survey has shown in any week across either of his terms. The June 2 release found that about 61% of Americans disapproved of how Trump is handling his job as president.
The poll gives a sharper picture of where that rating is coming from. Among independents, 71% said they disapprove of Trump’s job performance, a record high in this survey. The nationwide poll interviewed 1,604 adults between May 29 and June 1, with YouGov putting the margin of error at plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
The latest numbers do not stand alone. A separate Economist/YouGov poll conducted from May 22 to May 26 had already shown Trump’s disapproval at 59%, and the newer result extends a stretch in which his approval has remained net negative for roughly a year. It has also trended more negative in recent months, even as the size of the slide has become harder to pin to one single event.
That is the friction in the latest reading: the new low looks decisive, but it is also close to a mark Trump had already approached only a week earlier. The June 2 survey gives him the worst net job approval yet, while also suggesting the decline has been building rather than arriving in one sudden break.
What remains unanswered is the simplest question behind the numbers: why the rating moved further down now. The poll does not explain the cause, and it does not point to a near-term rebound. For the moment, it leaves Trump with a deeply negative public verdict, especially among independents, and a polling slide that has yet to show a clear floor.
