U.S. President Donald Trump's job approval rating has fallen to 32%, the lowest of either his first or second term, according to a poll released on the 21st.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll released on the 21st found that 32% of respondents approved of Trump's handling of his job, down 3 percentage points from 35% a week earlier. Reuters said it was the lowest approval rating of Trump's political career.
The decline was especially steep among Republicans, his core base. Approval among Republican respondents stood at 73%, down 9 percentage points from 82% a week earlier.
Frustration over living costs weighed on the rating, the survey indicated. Only 17% of respondents gave Trump positive marks for his handling of living costs. Among Republicans, negative assessments of his response to prices reached 51%, surpassing positive assessments at 44% for the first time.
Reuters said gasoline and diesel prices have risen sharply since Trump launched the war with Iran in February, fueling growing discontent over living costs among Republican voters.
Living costs rank among the most important issues for U.S. voters heading into the midterm elections on Nov. 3.
Trump has acknowledged that the war with Iran has kept oil prices high, but has argued that the costs borne by Americans are small compared with what the war has achieved, including preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. On the 7th, he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that oil prices would plunge if the United States won the war with Iran, and that everything would happen quickly.
The survey polled 1,277 adults nationwide over four days from the 17th to the 20th. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.0 percentage points.
