As the 2026 midterm approaches, all eyes are on Donald Trump.
Recent events in Minneapolis have put Republicans’ ratings in jeopardy. The GOP is set to battle a difficult election cycle amidst an ever-evolving political scenario in the country.
Trump recently ordered ICE agents to exit from Minneapolis as unrest in the city began to reduce, yet approval ratings remain low. According to the latest tracking data, only 40 percent of voters approve of Trump’s performance, while 56 percent disapprove – his lowest approval rating of the term.
After 37-year-old Renée Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen, was shot by an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, on January 24, adding to the outrage, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, was also killed by an ICE agent.
These incidents sparked protests in Minneapolis and gained global popularity. Critics slammed the Trump administration, that kept justifying the ICE attacks and claimed that Donald Trump demanded accountability from members of the ruling party.
Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida recently said in The Daily Beast podcast that fear of political backlash and potential retaliation from Trump has stopped many from speaking out, even if they personally disagree with the administration.
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Frost said Democrats remain well-positioned to win this time since a lot of people are upset over Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement in places like Minnesota.“We do have the ability to win,” he said. “And there are things we can do to push back.”
According to USA Today, Donald Trump’s approval rating was just 36% in an Associated Press and NORC poll earlier in February, while a Yahoo/YouGov survey from the same time period showed his approval rating at 38 percent, down from 40 percent the previous month.
These numbers match the lowest approval rating Trump has ever recorded. If these numbers continue, then he would have the lowest midterm approval rating of any president in roughly 70 years.
According to The New York Times, there is usually a strong connection between a president’s approval rating and how his party performs in midterm elections. However, there is no perfect rule, and the connection is not linear.
In 2022, former President Joe Biden had low approval ratings, but Democrats managed to dodge heavy losses and kept control of Congress. Democrats performed well in special elections before November, showing strong turnout among highly engaged voters.
One major reason for Democrats to rule was the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which dragged the issue of abortion into the spotlight and gave pregnant women the right to abort the child before fetal viability.
However, this year, there is no comparable helping Republicans. Donald Trump has the political spotlight for himself, and the media coverage has mostly been critical.
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Many old GOP supporters like Jenique Jones, a credit specialist from Bethlehem, told CNN’s John King last year that POTUS has not kept his promises, and she clearly regrets voting for him.
Many others blame young Americans who have higher ambitions of buying a home, raising a family, paying for child care, education, and health care for their economic dissatisfaction. Even though the overall standard of living seems manageable, the costs of fixed assets have grown higher than in the previous generation.
Speaking at a recent rally in Iowa, Trump told his supporters the importance of winning the midterms. “If we lose the midterms, you’ll lose so many of the things that we’re talking about — so many of the assets that we’re talking about, so many of the tax cuts that we’re talking about — and it would lead to very bad things,” he said. “We have got to win the midterms.”
