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Sunday, May 10, 2026
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Trump's Approval Numbers Just Hit a Three-Month High and the Media Is Pretending Not to Notice

President Trump's net approval rating just climbed to minus 9 in the latest Napolitan News Service poll conducted by RMG Research — his strongest showing since April. Among 2,000 registered voters surveyed between July 6 and July 14, 44 percent approved of his job performance with a margin of error of 2.2 percent.

Three months ago, that number was -18.5.

The trajectory here is what matters, and what the usual cable news panels won't spend any time on. Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin aggregator — which smooths out individual poll noise by combining multiple data sets — pegged Trump's net approval at minus-17 as of July 8, up from minus-17.9 a week earlier and minus-18.5 a month before that. That's three consecutive improvement windows. His approval had bottomed out in May, when inflation anxiety and foreign policy turbulence dragged him to his lowest point of the second term.

Then came the rebound.

The I&I/TIPP tracking poll showed Trump's personal favorability climbing to 40 percent in July, up from 37 percent in June. His net unfavorable rating narrowed from minus-16 to minus-12 in a single month. J.L. Partners had his net approval at minus-6. Talker Research and Scripps News clocked him at minus-1 — essentially break-even, which for a sitting president in year two would have been front-page news under any other administration.

The party internals tell the real story. Republican favorability for Trump rose to 76 percent, up from 72 percent the prior month. The base isn't softening. It's hardening. Among independents, the demographic every midterm analyst circles in red ink, favorability ticked up to 29 percent from 25 percent. Four points in a month among the voters who actually decide elections. That's YUGE.

Now, the Economist/YouGov poll from July 10-13 still showed Trump at 37 percent approval against 59 percent disapproval among 1,616 U.S. adults. Echelon Insights had him at 38-61 among 1,004 likely voters. These are the polls that will get cited on every network through the week. What won't get mentioned is that even by Silver's aggregated numbers — designed to capture the full landscape, not cherry-pick friendly outliers — the direction is consistently upward for the first sustained stretch since spring.

The context matters. Trump's May floor coincided with peak economic pessimism — 71 percent rated the economy fair or poor in the Economist/YouGov survey, with only 24 percent calling it excellent or good. Echelon Insights had his economy approval at just 35 percent against 61 percent disapproval. Those headwinds haven't disappeared. The fact that his overall numbers are climbing anyway suggests something else is moving voters — and whatever it is, it's pulling hardest among independents and within his own coalition.

The 2026 midterms are the backdrop to all of this. Independent voters determine outcomes in off-year elections, and that four-point favorability jump from 25 to 29 percent represents real movement in the demographic that swings seats. Every Republican strategist in Washington is watching that trendline. Most Democratic strategists are watching it too, which is why you're hearing more about process stories and less about head-to-head matchups on the Sunday shows.

Minus-17 is still a long way from political comfort. But minus-17 that used to be minus-18.5, trending toward minus-9 in individual polls, with independent support climbing and base loyalty at 76 percent — that's a trajectory, not a snapshot.

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