The title of the OP says it all, and it is not opinion but facts:
President Donald Trump understands better than anyone else alive that his hold on his supporters—and on plenty of swing voters too—depends on the mere
perception that he’s strong, wins everywhere, always acts boldly, and wields absolute mastery over his eternally feckless, disoriented enemies. Last month, after an anemic July jobs report, Trump
fired the steward of jobs data, magically transforming the story from one about the Trump economy’s weakness into one about him decisively crushing a newly designated foe.
On Friday, however, the new jobs report
found that only 22,000 jobs were created in August, far fewer than the 73,000
created in July. A downward revision of the previous month shows 13,000 jobs were lost in June. Shockingly, firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics could not disguise the impact of Trump’s own policies: As economists
noted, most signs suggest his tariffs are an important reason for the slowdown.
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What is most telling about this most recent poll is the fact that on the 2 issues that he ran on (and won because of it) are immigration and inflation. After 8 months of being in office, he is now polling negative on immigration (-4.1%) and on inflation, it is down -24%. Heck, on jobs and the economy, he is -16.5%.
By the way and before you attempt to dispute whether these numbers are wrong or not or whether these numbers are biased, the reality is that these are poll numbers which show what Americans in general are FEELING and BELIEVING about Trump's competency and his ability to get things done. This means that reality is not important at all. This is what Americans are going to feel about Trump, when they VOTE! As such, reality is meaningless.
Backing all of this information even more so, here is another interesting fact:
Gavin Newsome (California's governor), who also has a negative rating on the polls, is now leading Trump on the most recent polls:
Published Sep 04, 2025 at 9:32 AM EDT
Gavin Newsom is slightly more popular than Donald Trump, new polls have shown. According to polling by The Economist/YouGov, Newsom has a net approval rating of -10 percentage points, while Trump's is -15. The poll of 1,691 adults was conducted between August 29 and September 2 with a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points.
A Yahoo/YouGov poll of 1,690 adults found that Newsom has a net approval rating of -9, while Trump's approval rating is at -14. The poll was conducted between August 29 and September 2 and had a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.
According to two polls, the California governor is more favored than the president by 5 percentage points.
When you consider that Newsome,
who is a man few people even consider should be president, is beating Trump by 5 points, it supports the fact that Americans (including Republicans) are seeing Trump as a president that is failing the nation.
Last but "not least" is the fact that even among Trump's most ardent supporters, his approval ratings are down. He has always had a very high approval among his supporters (95%) but that is now down to 85%. It is still high but it does mean that 10% of his base is now believing he is doing a bad job.
Once again and for all those Trump supporters that immediately jump on anyone that criticize Trump (accuse them of having TDS), this is not an OP that is here to criticize Trump's actions (so they can be disputed) but is an OP that shows the fact that Trump is being
seen (by a "growing" number of Americans) as a President that is failing at his job.
That is what counts at election time!
