Schoen: What history says about Trump's job approval, midterms

Republican momentum heading into midterms may depend less on Donald Trump’s own messaging and more on how low his approval ratings have fallen, according to a historical comparison of 2018 and current polling cited by Schoen. Nate Silver’s aggregator places Trump’s average approval slightly above 36%, while surveys vary downward: a Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll put it at 33% and a Reuters/Ipsos poll at 31%. The final New York Times/Siena survey before the midterms showed 34%. In 2018 at the same point, Trump averaged 44% approval. More notably, approval on the economy plunged from 52% in 2018 to 33% now.