Jan. 31, 2026, 9:26 a.m. ET
- A new Pew Research Center poll shows President Trump’s approval rating has dropped to 37%.
- Support for the president’s policies among Republicans has fallen from 67% in 2025 to 56% now.
- A majority of Republicans, 61%, believe GOP lawmakers are not obligated to support Trump if they disagree with him.
Republicans are noticeably beginning to lose faith in President Donald Trump, a new survey shows, as he crisscrosses the country selling Americans on his economic record while dealing with growing civil unrest over his illegal immigration crackdown.
A new Pew Research Center poll released Jan. 29 shows the populist-fueled president’s approval rating sits at around 37%, which is down by about three percentage points when compared to the fall.
There is growing discontent with Trump’s plans, the survey finds, with only 27% of U.S. adults saying they support his policy prescriptions. That is down from 35% when he returned to the White House a little over a year ago.
A two-to-one margin of Americans also say the administration’s actions have made things worse, Pew found.
What might be more troubling for the president than the dip itself is where it is coming from and that is exclusively from an uptick in frustration among Trump’s usually loyal base, researchers say.
In 2025, for instance, about 67% of Republicans said they supported all or most of Trump’s ideas after he gut-punched Democrats in the last presidential contest to successfully return to power. That pillar is beginning to show cracks, however, with about 56% of GOP voters saying the same now.
For the past two months Trump has been getting out of Washington visiting various communities, lashing out at critics and declaring prosperity has returned when confronted with how many of his populist-based pledges have fallen short.
Many Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, see an opening ahead of the 2026 midterms and have been hammering how affordability hasn’t turned around at the pace Trump promised.
Most GOP voters don’t want a go along to get along Congress, poll finds
During a Jan. 29 Cabinet meeting, the president once again addressed some of those economic pains, saying wants to make it easier for Americans to buy homes.
The administration has been rolling out several proposals and actions aimed at addressing affordability as of late, such as Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order banning Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes.
“We’re going to make it easier to buy,” Trump said. “We’re going to get interest rates down. But I want to protect the people who, for the first time in their lives, feel good about themselves. They feel like, you know, that they’re wealthy people.”
But that hasn’t stopped the supporting bleeding out of the GOP base, Pew said, which shows Trump’s approval among Republicans standing at about 73% which is down from September.
One area where that dissatisfaction might be showing up is from conservative-leaning members of Congress who see their political future beyond the Trump era.
Over the past year there have also been examples of more congressional Republicans bucking the president, whether over the controversial release of files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein or the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by immigration officers in Minnesota.
The poll notes how about 38% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say that Trump’s party allies in Congress “have an obligation to support” his ideas.
But the among who say the opposing sits at 61% who assert Republicans lawmakers do not have an obligation to go along if they disagree which is up since last year when Pew showed that figure was at 55%.
Contributing: Joey Garrison
