Trump approval remains near career low as US midterm voters favour Democrats in poll

US President Donald Trump’s approval rating remained close to a career low immediately before Tuesday’s congressional midterm elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday. Thirty-two per cent of respondents approved of his performance, unchanged from the previous week and one point above the poll’s record-low reading two weeks earlier. The same survey found that 46 per cent of voters preferred a generic Democratic congressional candidate, compared with 38 per cent who preferred a Republican.

The eight-point Democratic advantage was narrower than the 11-point lead recorded in the previous Reuters/Ipsos poll. The generic ballot offers a nationwide measure of party preference but does not reflect the state-by-state and district-by-district contests that determine control of the House of Representatives and Senate. Republicans were seeking to retain their majorities in both chambers, while Democratic strategists saw a stronger opportunity in the House than in the Senate.

The poll indicated that Trump remained central to the election despite not appearing on the ballot. Among independent voters, 50 per cent said their congressional vote was intended as a vote against him, while 13 per cent described it as a vote for him. A further 33 per cent said the president was not a factor in their decision.

Al Jazeera reported that Trump had urged supporters to vote as if they were voting for him. He also warned that a Republican loss of control of Congress could lead Democrats to seek his impeachment for a third time. Cost-of-living pressures were the most prominent issue in the Reuters/Ipsos survey.

Seventy-eight per cent of voters said the rising cost of living would be very important or the most important factor in deciding how to vote. On which party was better equipped to address the issue, respondents favoured Democrats by 43 per cent to 32 per cent. The reports link the political pressure to higher fuel prices following Trump’s launch of a war on Iran in February.

Al Jazeera said the conflict had also intensified concerns about inflation and the economy. The supplied material does not provide a separate measure of the war’s public support. Democrats also held an advantage in reported voting enthusiasm.

Forty-nine per cent of Democratic voters said they were “very enthusiastic” about voting, compared with 33 per cent of Republicans. That difference could affect turnout, although the poll itself did not forecast the final result. Trump spent nearly a month campaigning for Republican candidates before ending his election effort with a rally in Washington, DC, on Monday afternoon.

He spoke at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and devoted substantial attention to plans to renovate the capital, including a proposed “Triumphal Arch” facing legal challenges. At the rally, Trump acknowledged that a sitting president’s party often performs poorly in midterm elections. “For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” he said, according to Al Jazeera.

“But we gave this a very strong shot.” The Reuters/Ipsos survey questioned 1,765 US adults online and had a margin of error of two percentage points. Its party preference figures show a Democratic lead, but the reports stress that national polling cannot capture the contests that decide congressional control.