Democrats Lead Generic Ballot for the First Time in Trump’s Second Presidency
President Donald Trump’s approval rating is now in slightly negative territory, a sharp decline from his all-time high shortly after Inauguration Day and complete reversal from May. The survey was conducted by BIG DATA POLL as part of the Public Polling Project for July 2025.
The national survey finds 48.3% of registered voters approve of the way he is handling the job of president. Meanwhile, 48.7% disapprove of his handling of the presidency—up from a record low 37.4% in January and 47.4% in May. Only 2.9% remain undecided.
In July, the Public Polling Project also conducted the Registered Voter Economic Confidence Index and gauged views about the U.S. role in the Middle East following U.S. intervention in the 12 Day War and bombing of several nuclear sites in Iran. The findings—to be released later this afternoon—provide insight into the president’s declining approval ratings.
“Voters, specifically part of the president’s partisan base and independents, believe the administration is focusing too much on issues that matter little to them, and dismissing issues that do,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris, said in a statement. “Fair or not, that’s how they feel and those feelings will need to be appreciated and their concerns addressed if he hopes to recover.”
“The White House clearly lost the messaging war over the One Big Beautiful Bill and that’s in no small part due to those achievements being overshadowed.”
Only 37% of independents approve of the job he is doing, while 56.6% disapprove.
Interestingly, the president did see a bump in approval among those who have at least a 4-year college degree, though these voters say they’ll support Democrats in the midterms.
Looking ahead to the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats have taken their first lead on the Generic Ballot since the start of the president’s second term. When asked, 42.3% say that they will vote for the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, while 41.1% say they will vote for the Republican candidate.
Voters ages 30-39 and 40-49 continue to give President Trump his strongest approval ratings, but his marks among voters ages 18-29 deteriorated considerably since the bombing of Iran.
Voters ages 75+ marginally improved since May, and voters age 65-74 were largely unchanged.
The spread between those who say the country is headed in the right direction and those who say it’s off on the wrong track widened slightly, inching higher and back into double digits after being in single digits for months. Only 39.4% now say the country is headed in the right direction, while 50.8% say it’s off on the wrong track and 9.8% are undecided. Prior to this month, this notoriously negative gauge had demonstrated a positive trend under the second Trump Administration.
Methodology
The Public Polling Project conducted by BIG DATA POLL interviewed 3,022 registered voters nationwide from July 12 to July 14, 2025. Interviews conducted online are sourced through Lucid (CINT) and live-agent phone interviews including P2P SMS and text-to-online are sourced from the Aristotle National Voter File Database. Participants who opted for text-to-online were given 24 hours to complete the interview. Interview details plotted on maps can be reviewed by hovering and clicking on the locator pins. Results were weighted for sex, age, race and ethnicity, education, and region. The overall sampling error is ±1.8% at a 95% confidence interval. It is important to note that sampling errors for subgroups are higher. All BIG DATA POLL publicly conducted surveys are crowdfunded via the Public Polling Project, supplemented if necessary by BIG DATA POLL and are NOT funded by or affiliated with any candidate, campaign, committee, or political entity. Full and interactive crosstabs can be viewed on MarketSight.
