“Trump approval slips to historic low in Wall Street Journal survey”, 28 September 2026 (Photo via The Hill — the original report)
As it ran on the front
Call the number what it is: a snapshot, not a verdict. The Wall Street Journal's poll has the president at 37 percent this week — a snapshot that also happens to be the lowest the paper has ever recorded for a president this close to a midterm, in polling that goes back further than this administration. Fine. Call it a snapshot.
The re-air was good messaging, full stop. The government put the 2024 campaign ad — "final battle" imagery and all — back on the air last week, and if a handful of House candidates couldn't stand next to it, chalk it up to nerves — no, that's not fair to either of them: Mike Beltran took the president's name off his own website on September 1st, days after calling that endorsement "conviction," and Byron Donalds did the same three weeks later at a bigger scale. They didn't flinch at the agenda. They flinched at the man, whose approval a Reuters survey had already clocked at 32 percent on September 21st, the worst of either term.…
…(cont) A member reading the same polling the rest of us are reading gets called disloyal for it.
On September 25th the government pulled back $810 million in a "pocket rescission," only the second in 49 years, a chunk of it earmarked for immigrants without legal status. Disciplined. Overdue. It landed three days before the worst pre-midterm approval number on record. Coincidence, if you want to call it that. I don't.
Monday, the president went after the Florida Republicans who'd already put the distance between themselves and him, and brushed off the idea any of it should cost him anything.
It should. The floor is not holding, and I was told to say it was.
🍺
“They spent taxpayer money re-running the man's own campaign ad, and a week later his own party's candidates are scrubbing his name off their websites like it's paint that didn't dry right. Thirty-seven percent — the worst any president's polled going into a midterm — and Kean stands up on a debate stage in front of cameras and says no thanks, live. When the fundraiser calls asking for his name back on your homepage in November, ask him where he was when it was thirty-seven.”
“Thirty-seven percent is a snapshot, not a mandate rejection — presidents bounce back, ask Reagan, ask — okay, not the strongest comp. The ad wasn't about persuading anybody, it was reminding the base why they showed up, and if a couple candidates in tight races want daylight, that's just smart campaigning, that's — yeah, that's them running from him. Did I say that? That's not the line.”
President Trump’s approval rating has fallen to a record low in Wall Street Journal polling for a president only a few weeks out from the midterms. In the new poll from the Journal, Trump’s approval rating sat at 37 percent, the lowest of a president shortly before a midterm in the outlet's polling going back...
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) crossed President Donald Trump on Sunday by not supporting the president’s policy agenda during the first and only televised debate in the competitive race for New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District.
In today's issue: ▪ Trump’s frustration grows in Florida ▪ Senate’s last week in town ▪ Possible terrorist attack prevented ▪ The administration’s ‘magic’ words President Trump fumed online over the weekend as Republicans face warning signs in Florida, going after a key ally who broke with him on immigration and brushing off the idea...
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.
