CNN data analyst Harry Enten on December 17, 2025 (Image: Screengrab via CNN / @ForecasterEnten / X)
Can President Donald Trump break a pattern held by several of his predecessors — rebounding into a positive net approval rating by next year’s midterm elections?
It will be challenging but not impossible, says CNN forecaster Harry Enten, who noted that if he doesn’t, it could spell trouble for congressional Republicans on the November ballot.
“I would say the report card is negative,” Enten said on Wednesday. “It’s minus. It’s no good.”
Enten then shared a critical statistic.
“Every single day since March 12th, Trump has been in the red. Negative. That is days in row, 281. He has spent more time underwater than Jacques Cousteau, for goodness’ sake.”
“The bottom line is this, the American people don’t like what Trump’s doing, and they haven’t liked what Trump’s doing for a long period of time: 281 days,” he explained, noting that his net negatives are on “all the key issues.”
“He’s underwater across the board.”
“Immigration, a key issue for him: underwater by six points. Foreign policy, which has been one of his better issues, underwater by 14 points. Trade and tariffs, of course, this has been a key component of Trump’s presidency: underwater by 15 points.”
“The economy, the reason Trump got elected to a second term, underwater by 16 points, and the Epstein case — which I think will be talking a lot about going into the latter part of this week — underwater by 29 points. Negative, negative, negative, negative, negative,” he exclaimed.
Enten noted that there are still ten and a half months until the midterms.
“But if history is any guide, it’s not a good one for you, because take a look at your term two, negative net approval ratings at this point, when positive by the midterm, well, we have three examples: Richard Nixon, he was forced out of office, of course. He never went positive. George W. Bush, he never saw positive territory again. Barack Obama earlier this century, he did not go positive by the midterm.”
And now, “It’s just negative across the board for the president of the United States. He is, again, gonna have to break history. He has done it before, but he’s really gonna have to do it if he really wants to give his Republican Party much of a chance come the 2026 midterms, because if the numbers look like this and look like this, well, this will become another X.”
