President Donald Trump continues to confound — and anger — his political enemies who have written him off time and time again, only to see him bounce back even better than before. And it’s just happened again, according to CNN political data cruncher Harry Enten. During a Friday segment, Enten revealed that Trump’s overall approval rating has been steadily increasing again after falling somewhat following his inauguration, adding that he’s now in a much better place politically than at the same time during his first term.
“I think it’s time for a bit of a reality check, right? Donald Trump’s approval rating, his net approval, seemed to be falling. He seemed to be adios amigos. People were writing his political obituary. He is rising from the dead. Look at this. Hello. Trump’s net approval rating among voters. This is the Reuters Ipsos polling,” Enten began.
“Look at this, in late April, he was eight points underwater. But look at where he was in the most recent poll among voters. He’s up seven points to a minus one point net favorability rating,” he said. “This is not the picture I think a lot I think a lot of people were thinking that we would be painting in late April. I think a lot of people expected his approval rate to keep dropping, but at least according to Reuters Ipsos, it’s in fact rising.”
Host John Berman then asked Enten to put all the data in a larger perspective. “Yeah, okay. This is just one poll, right?” Enten said. “But Let’s take a look across an aggregate of polls. What are we seeing here? I want to compare both to where Donald Trump is now versus where he was in late April, as well as where he was at this point in term number one.
“What you see is that minus six points, he is a little bit worse off than he is in the Ipsos/Reuters polling, but he is considerably better than he was in late April when he was nine points underwater. And more than that, look at this; he’s nearly 10 points better than he was back in May 16th of 2017 in his first term,” Enten added.
“We see as Donald Trump is not just doing better than he was doing in late April of 2025. He’s doing considerably better than he was doing at this point in term number one, about 10 points better than he was doing at this point in term number one,” he said, as Berman then said while some of the numbers aren’t great, they are very good for the president.
Berman then asked why Trump’s approval ratings bottomed out and began rising again:
ENTEN: Okay, why? Well, take a look at the chance of a recession. It’s actually falling. The chance of a recession is falling. In late April, it was 60% according to J. P. Morgan. Look at where it is now. It’s less than 50%. How about Goldman Sachs? You see the same thing, 45%, now falling to 35%.
The bottom line is it is the economy, the economy, the economy. As the chance of a recession has fallen, as the trade wars have collapsed a little bit, at least with China, Trump trying to make a deal, we do see that I do think that the voters are responding to this, and therefore, we’re seeing Trump’s approval rating going up.
BERMAN: The tariffs were really hurting him, and he backed off. It may be helping him politically now.
ENTEN: Sometimes, Donald Trump has some pretty good political instincts.
Time for a reality check… I think some folks thought Trump’s approval rating would keep falling, but it’s rising.
Ipsos has his net approval going from -8 pts to -1 pt with voters. Aggregate has him up higher than late April too & much higher than at this point in term 1. pic.twitter.com/uP0xYvnnnZ
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) May 16, 2025
