With five months to go until the midterms, President Donald Trump is now faring worse than former President Joe Biden on a key economic issue, according to new polling.
In a Reuters survey released Monday, 70 percent of respondents said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of the cost of living for Americans, while just 22 percent said they approve.
By comparison, when Biden left office in January 2025, 63 percent of respondents disapproved of his handling of the cost of living, while 29 percent approved.
Biden struggled for years to bring down high inflation, fueled by pandemic-era stimulus checks and spillover effects from the war in Ukraine, among other factors. That failure helped contribute to Democrats losing the White House, and all seven swing states, in 2024.
On the campaign trail and after returning to office, Trump repeatedly vowed to rein in inflation and lower fuel prices. But his war in Iran, launched in February, has only made matters worse.
As a result of dueling U.S. and Iranian blockades in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route, global fuel prices have spiked, driving inflation higher.
In April, inflation reached 3.8 percent from one year earlier, marking its highest level in three years. And on Tuesday, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. stood at $4.16, up from $2.98 two days before the war started, according to AAA.
Even as pump prices have eased recently amid hopes that the war will soon end, 59 percent of respondents said they expect domestic gas prices to worsen over the next year. Just 17 percent said they think prices will improve.
The survey, which sampled 4,531 U.S. adults, also spelled more trouble for the 79-year-old Republican president.
A majority of respondents, 60 percent, said they disapproved of U.S. strikes on Iran, while 63 percent said they disapproved of Trump’s overall job as president. Only 35 percent said they approved of his tenure thus far, marking one of the lowest ratings of his decade-long political career. Additionally, 41 percent of registered voters said they would vote for Democrats over Republicans if congressional elections were held today, while 37 percent said they’d cast their ballots for the GOP.
The findings are just the latest warning sign for Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections, which will decide the balance of power in the House and the Senate.
Some GOP strategists and lawmakers have cautioned for weeks that their party could face a midterm shellacking if prices remain elevated.
Last month, veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove wrote that Trump’s “erratic” messaging on the Iran war and his dismissive attitude toward economic hardship could hurt fellow GOP lawmakers’ prospects this fall.
Democrats, meanwhile, have seized on the economic turmoil, accusing Trump of abandoning his campaign promises and putting Americans’ financial security at risk in pursuit of a pointless and unauthorized foreign war.
The White House has said that Trump is taking the necessary actions to safeguard national security and ensure that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Earlier this month, Trump also insisted that gas prices would plummet to $1.85 a gallon as soon as the Middle East conflict wraps up.
But it remains unclear when the war will end. Several rounds of negotiations have failed, and the fragile ceasefire now in place came under strain after a U.S. Apache helicopter was downed in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.
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