More than a year into President Donald Trump’s second term, a Newsweek analysis of new state-level polling suggests his standing has weakened across the country, with some of the sharpest drops in places that once backed him most strongly.
Key Points
- Net approval has declined in every state since Trump returned to office in January 2025.
- The steepest drops are in Republican-leaning states, not just Democratic strongholds.
- Several battlegrounds, including Florida, Ohio and Nevada, have shifted into net disapproval.
- Early pro‑Trump advantages have narrowed sharply, even in his strongest states.
- The political map still resembles the partisan divide, but with weaker margins across the board.
The figures come from Civiqs’ rolling online tracking poll of registered voters, based on more than 107,000 responses collected between January 20, 2025, and May 26, 2026. To measure change over time, Newsweek has compared state results from Trump’s first day in office with the latest estimates, with net approval calculated as approve minus disapprove.
Because the tracker uses continuous surveying and statistical modeling, the results reflect smoothed trends rather than a single snapshot. Every state in the tracker shows a decline in Trump’s net approval since the start of his second term—but the steepest falls are concentrated in a mix of Republican strongholds and key battlegrounds.
Use the date filter on the map below to compare Trump’s net approval rating by state at the start of his second term with the latest Civiqs estimate.
And you can search your state to see how approval has shifted since the start of the term. The sharpest changes occur where states flip from positive net approval to negative, or where early pro‑Trump margins have narrowed sharply.
A second map shows the change over time, highlighting where net approval has fallen most.
The divide is even clearer when you break the tracker down by age, education and party.
Biggest Drops: Where Approval Has Fallen the Most
The largest declines in net approval highlight just how much ground Trump has lost since taking office.
- Wyoming: +47 → +22 (down 25 points)
- Kentucky: +23 → 0 (down 23 points)
- Nebraska: +18 → -4 (down 22 points)
- Alaska: +9 → -12 (down 21 points)
- Florida: +9 → -12 (down 21 points)
- Oklahoma: +31 → +10 (down 21 points)
- Nevada: 0 → -20 (down 20 points)
- Maine: -12 → -31 (down 19 points)
- Ohio: +8 → -11 (down 19 points)
- Utah: +20 → +1 (down 19 points)
Just outside the top tier, Idaho, Tennessee and Montana also fall by 19 points, while Kansas and West Virginia are down 18 points. These numbers point to a simple shift: states that began the term with comfortable pro‑Trump margins now look far less secure—and in several cases have slipped into negative territory.
Wyoming remains Trump’s strongest state, but even there the margin has narrowed sharply. Kentucky, meanwhile, has dropped from solidly positive to dead even, illustrating how quickly the landscape has shifted.
Swing States: From Competitive to Negative
The movement is most politically significant in battleground states, where relatively small changes can have outsized consequences.
Several have crossed key lines:
- Florida: +9 → -12 (positive to negative)
- Ohio: +8 → -11 (positive to negative)
- Nevada: 0 → -20 (from even to clearly underwater)
- Nebraska: +18 → -4 (positive to negative)
Elsewhere, states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina remain competitive but show further slippage compared to the start of the term.
The pattern reinforces a broader reality: Trump is now underwater in many of the states that typically decide national elections, even if the margins are not yet overwhelming.
Deep Red States: Still Positive, but Eroding
Trump’s support remains strongest across much of the Republican map, but the margins are noticeably narrower than they were at the start of his presidency.
States such as Oklahoma, Idaho, Tennessee and Montana still show positive net approval, yet each has lost close to 20 points since January 2025. Even in deeply conservative Wyoming, the country’s most pro‑Trump state, the net advantage has been cut by more than half.
That suggests his base remains intact—but less dominant than it was at the outset of the second term.
Deep Blue States: Opposition Holds Firm
In Democratic-leaning states, Trump started his term with sharply negative ratings, and those numbers have generally worsened further. States like California, New York and Massachusetts all register deeper negative net approval today than at the start of the term, though the scale of change is smaller than in red states simply because there was less room to fall.
Here, the story is less about dramatic movement and more about entrenched opposition becoming even more firmly embedded.
What’s Driving the Drop
Across the states with the biggest declines, one pattern stands out: approval is down, and disapproval is up—often by similar margins.
In many cases:
- Approval has fallen by around 10 to 14 points
- Disapproval has risen by roughly 8 to 11 points
That two-way movement matters. It means the drop is not just about waning enthusiasm; it reflects a broader shift in voter sentiment.
Wyoming illustrates the trend clearly:
- Approval: 72 → 58 (down 14)
- Disapproval: 25 → 36 (up 11)
- Net: +47 → +22 (down 25)
When both sides move at once, net approval can fall quickly—and across the country, that is exactly what has happened.
A National Map That Looks Familiar—But Weaker
Taken together, the data show a political map that still looks familiar in structure but weaker in strength. Trump’s best states remain his best states. His weakest states remain firmly opposed. But across the board, the margins have shifted downward.
At the start of his second term, Trump held clear positive net approval across much of the Republican map and was competitive in several battlegrounds. More than a year later, many of those same states are now narrowly positive, evenly split or clearly negative.
The result is a landscape where the dividing lines are unchanged—but the ground beneath them has moved.
What the White House Says
The White House has dismissed the significance of recent polling, instead pointing to Trump’s 2024 election victory as the clearest measure of public support.
Spokesperson Davis Ingle has repeatedly cited the nearly 80 million Americans who voted for Trump as evidence of the administration’s mandate, framing that result as the overriding verdict on its agenda.
In a response that the White House has consistently used, Ingle said the administration remains focused on economic priorities such as jobs, inflation and housing affordability, while arguing that the impact of the president’s policies will become clearer over time.
