Name: Enten on Trump’s pre-State of the Union polling lows
Uploaded: 2026-02-23T21:31:53.000Z
Duration: 10 min 53 s
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Sienna's Harry Antin is running the numbers on this one for us.

Harry, what's your take with what you're looking at on how people are feeling about how Trump is doing in this moment?

I would borrow the phrasing of Tony Blair, of course, the former prime Minister of Great Britain saying, weak, weak, weak.

It was weak over there in the United Kingdom.

It is weak here in the United States when it comes to President Trump.

The snow is up to the knees here in New York City and Trump seems to be well underneath it at this point.

Compare that to where he was in 2020, 2019 and 2018 in term one going into those state of unions.

Donald Trump has never been weaker going into a State of the Union address, according to our CNN polling, than he is right now, and weaker by a considerable amount.

So this is his first term to his second term.

How does it compare to other presidents at this point in their second term, though?

It's not just that Donald Trump is breaking records compared to himself when it comes to State of Unions.

He's breaking records compared to other presidents at this point going into a State of the Union.

Look at all the 21st century presidents on your screen right here about at this point, a second term going into the State of the union.

You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know that minus 27 points is considerably lower than minus 15 or minus 11.

So Trump isn't just weaker than he's ever been going into a State of the Union address.

He is weaker than any other president this century going into a State of the Union address at this point in their second term.

You're talking about it all throughout the show as we're going through these numbers.

But talk about what is driving this drop for the president.

I said record was the name of the game when it came to this segment.

Talking about the lowest Trump has ever been going into the State of the Union, the lowest that any president has been this century going into a State of the Union at this point in their presidency.

It is also the weakest that Donald Trump has ever been with independence.

We've been talking about it the past few months.

At this point, a year ago, Donald Trump was at -13 points.

Look at this, -47 points among independents, the lowest Donald Trump has ever been in either of his two terms as president.

When you're 47 points underwater with independence, that's the name of the game.

And that is why Donald Trump is near record lows overall and the lowest he's ever been going into a State of the Union address.

We have a new CNN poll out this morning with President Trump's approval rating at 36%.

That's lower than President Biden was at this point four years ago, and it's down 12 percentage points since a year ago.

Just Last February, just 32% of Americans say the president is focused on the right priorities, 68%.

Nearly 7 in 10Americans say he is focused on the wrong things.

This morning, the president had this to say about tomorrow's address.

We have the most activity we've ever had.

I'm making a speech tomorrow night and you'll be hearing me say that.

I mean, it's going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters.

Kristen, I'm going to start with you and the we just showed the overall approval rating, but the story is deep in the poll with a couple of, actually several of the key demographics.

This is one of the most remarkable stories here.

If you look at where the president was In January of 2021, this is January 6th, the attack on the Capitol.

Now he's at 26% among independents, which means only a quarter of independents in the United States of America approve of the job that he is doing.

Yeah, and he's very aware of that now, of course, I don't think any of us are surprised that he's going to be giving a long speech tomorrow.

I mean, that seems like it might be really, really long.

But, you know, when it comes to independents, when it comes to the job that he's doing, there is a lot of frustration inside of the White House.

It's not as though he is not Seeing these polls, we know that he is reliant on these polls.

We know that he is seeing polls on a regular basis from his own in house pollsters.

And that's why you're hearing a lot more frustration when it comes to the President when you're hearing him give these speeches saying essentially even just now in this event that he was doing with these angel families, talking about how the media never gives him good coverage, he never gets credit for anything that he's doing.

He believes that this is the media's fault, that this is his own PR's fault and that's the reason that he's not getting the credit.

Not because of what he is focused on, it's because how people feel out there.

And you obviously every day talk to people who are on the ballot in just a few months.

I know the answer to this question, but I'll just ask it anyways.

Can he actually show some empathy to what the American public is feeling right now, which is not everything is so great.

And trying to cheerlead his way into convincing Americans that they're not feeling how they're feeling.

Can he move in a direction saying, look, we understand there's pain right now that people are feeling, we are working on it to deal with it.

We're dealing with X, we're dealing with Y, we're dealing with Z.

So I think we can expect him to try to try to convince a very skeptical American public.

Look, tomorrow is going to be probably his biggest audience he's going to have before the midterm elections and his opportunity to try to reset some Americans perceptions of how the job that he is doing in office.

But this midterm is going to be a referendum on him, which is why those numbers are freaking out Republicans who are going to be on the ballot in November.

Yeah, I mean independents are, I mean not only the swing voters, but they are the sort of telltale sign of, of where things are headed with regard to the next time there's a major election.

And it's really, really bad for Republicans.