Trump approval rating so low on inflation he ‘broke the scale,’ pollster says

Data journalist and pollster G. Elliott Morris says that President Donald Trump’s approval rating on inflation is so low that he had to redo his graph to account for it.

Recent polling shows that the president faces historic disapproval on reducing the cost of living. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found that only 21 percent of Americans approve of his handling of inflation.

A poll from Fox News showed that he has only a 28 percent approval rating on inflation, while 72 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of it. Meanwhile, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released a poll last month showing that his approval on the economy dropped from 38 percent in March to 30 percent in April.

Morris, who runs the polling aggregator 50plusOne, showed that the polling average for Trump’s approval rating on inflation and the cost of living is well below what he had set on his graph. His website shows as of the end of April, his approval rating on inflation is at negative 40.3 percent.

“Trump literally broke the scale of this graph on my data portal,” Morris tweeted.

Trump largely won the 2024 presidential election due to frustration from voters about the increased cost of living. But ever since returning to office, Trump has enacted an aggressive policy of imposing tariffs on foreign countries, causing prices to increase.

In addition, the war in Iran has caused the price of gas to skyrocket not just in the United States but around the world. Iran has largely responded to the Trump administration’s assault by closing off the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes.

There are few signs that inflation will abate. Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its survey showing that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.9 percent in March as the war in Iran began, and the report showed that prices rose 3.3 percent in the past year.

On Thursday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures index, a key inflation indicator used by the Federal Reserve to determine how to set interest rates.

The data showed that the number jumped to its highest level in three years, hitting 0.7 percent in March, 3.2 percent higher than it was a year ago. Bloomberg’s April survey of economists showed that economists expect the PCE index to increase 3.6 percent in the second

The price of gas also hit $4.23 a gallon, its highest since Russia invaded Ukraine.

All of this could spell dire news for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterm election. Morris’s website shows that ahead of the midterm, Democrats a five-point lead on the generic ballot, which measures whether voters would prefer to vote for a generic Democrat versus a generic Republican to Congress.

Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in his last meeting as chairman that the central bank would keep interest rates steady amid concerns about inflation.

Trump has tried to push Powell to reduce interest rates.

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