Donald Trump is underwater in every swing state three months before the November 3 midterm elections, according to state-by-state polling that puts fresh pressure on Republican candidates heading into the congressional fight. The map, built from Civiqs’ rolling online tracking poll of 120,580 responses from registered voters, shows the president’s approval numbers sliding below his disapproval mark in the places that matter most when control of Congress is at stake.
That is why the search around Donald Trump approval ratings by state is spiking now. The numbers are being read not as a national snapshot, but as a gauge of whether Trump can still drag close races across the finish line. Brett Loyd called his position “pretty rough” and described it as a “collapse among the middle third of the electorate,” a warning that matters because the midterms are not decided by national averages. They are decided in battleground states where small shifts can shape House and Senate outcomes.
The comparison with earlier election cycles makes the picture worse for Trump. Newsweek compared his approval rating on July 30, 2026, with where it stood on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, and found a national net rating of -23, calculated by subtracting disapproval from approval. That leaves him 13 points worse off than he was ahead of the 2018 midterms, when Civiqs polling showed him at 43 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval for a net rating of -10. At a comparable point before the 2022 midterms, Joe Biden was at 36 percent approval and 55 percent disapproval, a net of -19, which means Trump is now slightly weaker than Biden was at the same stage.
The deeper problem for the White House is that the public case it makes for a mandate does not match the state-level data. Trump’s 2024 election victory is being cited as proof of broad backing, but the polling shows him below water in every swing state and among key blocs that often decide close races. Among voters aged 18 to 34, only 22 percent approve and 72 percent disapprove. Among voters aged 35 to 49, the split is 29 percent approve to 63 percent disapprove. Independents stand at 28 percent approve and 64 percent disapprove, while women disapprove by a 65-to-30 margin and men are divided at 53 percent disapprove to 42 percent approve. That is the kind of profile that can unsettle GOP incumbents, and Loyd said being underwater by double digits in major battlegrounds means they cannot count on Trump to lift them across the finish line.
Still, the data does not hand Democrats a free ride. Loyd said Democrats should not assume voter frustration with Trump will automatically become support for their party, saying they are “not automatically reaping the rewards” and that it is “not an automatic green light for Democrats either.” That leaves the November 3 midterm elections as the real test of whether a weak president in the swing states becomes a drag on his party or just a sign of a broader political mood that neither side fully owns.
