Press Release: 8/31/2026
Trump Job Approval
“With no end in sight to the ongoing war in Iran, the continued rise in the price of gas, groceries, utilities, and housing, an escalating trade war with Canada, and the likelihood of higher interest rates, it comes as no surprise that Trump’s approval rating remains at a paltry 32%, a 1-percentage-point drop since we last polled in March 2026,” Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll. “With the midterm elections just two months away, the clock is ticking for President Trump and the Republican Party to offer solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems. A failure to do so will likely result not only in a continued decline in the President’s approval rating but could also put Republican control of the House of Representatives and possibly the U.S. Senate increasingly at risk.”
PercentDonald Trump Overall Job Approval, over time (N=1,000)Do you approve or disapprove of the way each is doing their job? President Donald Trump21211616141417171717181899991010494953535454446633Strongly ApproveSomewhat ApproveSomewhat DisapproveStrongly DisapproveNot SureJuly 2025Mar. 2026Aug. 20260204060
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Trump Issue Performance
“Arguably, Trump’s unpopularity is largely a problem of his own making,” says Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Huge majorities of Americans say that Trump is not handling the war in Iran (68%), inflation (75%) and jobs (63%) well. Of course, these issues are related—Trump’s choice to attack Iran, and subsequent mismanagement of the conflict, have contributed materially to inflation and the soft economy. Moreover, his decisions to take gifts from foreign nations and profit from various businesses while in office appear to have led many Americans to express concerns about corruption in his presidency, as fully two-thirds of Americans (67%) say he hasn’t handled corruption in government well. Although presidential approval predictably decays over time, Trump’s own decisions have likely made this problem worse than it would otherwise be.”
“While a candidate for president in 2024, Trump consistently promised Americans that he, unlike Joe Biden, would tackle the nation’s affordability crisis head-on and begin lowering inflation on day one of his presidency,” Nteta says. “A little more than a year and a half into his presidency, however, Americans continue to experience rising costs for groceries, gas, utilities, health care, and housing, with inflation now higher than when Biden left office. Americans have taken note, giving Trump low marks for his handling of inflation, with a whopping 75% indicating that he has not handled inflation well during his time in office. If the 2026 midterm election becomes a referendum on the economy and the nation’s affordability crisis, the Republican Party could be facing a serious threat to its control of both houses of Congress.”
ValuesTrump Issue Performance, Aug 2026 (N=1,000)How well would you say that President Trump has handled...101101999910110110010010110110010010010077242411111010111155101015151313202015151919181816161818991515131312121414111157575050484855555252434356564433777777202077Very WellSomewhat WellNot Too WellNot Well At AllDon't Know05101520253035404550556065707580859095100105110InflationImmigrationJobsIran/War with IranWorking with allies in global affairsArtificial IntelligenceCorruption in government
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2024 Election Voter Regret
“Presenting anecdotal evidence of Americans who regret casting their 2024 ballot for Trump has become something of a media cottage industry in the last two years,” Theodoridis says. “We have been tracking regret to see whether the numbers match the narrative. There are no takebacks in electoral politics, but around 15% of Trump voters now tell us they might or would vote differently or not vote at all if they had it to do over again. This is hardly a mass exodus from the Trump tent, but is enough that it certainly could’ve been decisive against Trump in what was a relatively close 2024 election. More notably, though, there are now clear, consistent signs of an erosion trend," says Alexander Theodoridis, associate professor of political science and co-director of the UMass Poll.
Trump Voters (N=262)If you could go back and make your decision about the 2024 presidential election over again, how would you vote? Aug, 202684.0%84.0%2.0%2.0%7.0%7.0%7.0%7.0%I would vote for Donald TrumpI would vote for Kamala HarrisI would vote for a third party candidateI would not vote
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Harris Voters (N=360)If you could go back and make your decision about the 2024 presidential election over again, how would you vote? Aug, 20260.0%0.0%93.9%93.9%5.1%5.1%1.0%1.0%I would vote for Donald TrumpI would vote for Kamala HarrisI would vote for a third party candidateI would not vote
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Non-Voters (N=361)If you could go back and make your decision about the 2024 presidential election over again, how would you vote? Aug, 202619.8%19.8%26.7%26.7%13.9%13.9%39.6%39.6%I would vote for Donald TrumpI would vote for Kamala HarrisI would vote for a third party candidateI would not vote
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Approval of Military Actions Against Iran
“Six months into the war with Iran, with reports of the nation’s military stockpiles dwindling, the Strait of Hormuz still under the control of the Iranian government, and the prospects for a peaceful settlement to the conflict diminishing, we find that a majority of Americans (54%) disapprove of U.S. military actions in Iran, while nearly 7 in 10 (68%) view President Donald Trump’s handling of the war negatively,” says Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll.
“Americans are overwhelmingly negative about Trump on the Iran situation,” says Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Only 1 in 4 Americans thinks he is handling Iran well. The real divide is increasingly between Trump’s hardcore MAGA base and almost everyone else. Among Republicans who identify very strongly with MAGA, 87% approve of Trump’s handling of Iran. But that falls to 58% among Republicans who are ‘somewhat MAGA’ and just 30% among Republicans who say they are ‘not MAGA at all.’ The more loosely attached Republicans are to the MAGA identity, the more skeptical they are of the war.”
PercentDo you approve or disapprove of the recent U.S. military actions against Iran? (N=1,000)15151111202013134141Strongly approveSomewhat approveNeither Approve Nor DisapproveSomewhat disapproveStrongly disapprove02468101214161820222426283032343638404244August 2026
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Methodology
- Field Dates: August 21 –26, 2026
- Sample: 1,000 Respondents
- Margin of Error: 3.5%
The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. The sampling frame was constructed by stratified sampling from the full 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year sample with selection within strata by weighted sampling with replacements (using the person weights on the public use file).
The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education, region, and home ownership. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles.
The weights were then raked (iterative proportional fitting) on 2024 presidential vote choice and post-stratified using a four-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories), race (4-categories), and education (4-categories), to produce the final weight.
Read more about the UMass Poll's methodology
Read more about the contributing members of the UMass Poll team