President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 33 per cent, the lowest reading since the Financial Times began asking the question in May, according to a new FT/Focaldata poll published Wednesday.
The poll points to voters’ worsening view of the economy and the cost of living as the main driver of the slide — a familiar danger signal for any incumbent party heading into an election.
The timing could hardly be more charged: the numbers arrive 26 days before the November 3 midterm elections, with control of Congress on the line. A separate report says Trump is announcing $2.35 billion in direct payments to Americans in the weeks before the vote, a move critics will frame as election-season largesse and supporters as cost-of-living relief.
Whether the payments move the needle — or simply feed the affordability debate that has dragged the president’s numbers down — will be one of the defining questions of the campaign’s final stretch.
