Democrats are more enthusiastic about the midterms as Trump’s approval hits a second-term low, CNN poll finds

One year out from the midterm elections, the Democratic Party holds a sizable enthusiasm advantage as views of President Donald Trump dip further into negative territory, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

The fall of 2025 is not a replay of 2017, the year before the Democrats captured control of the US House in Trump’s first term. The Democrats’ 5-point advantage among registered voters in the generic congressional ballot falls short of the 11-point edge they held in CNN polling a year before the 2018 midterms. And favorable views of the party still stand near all-time lows as they have throughout this year, 8 points below where they were in the fall of Trump’s first year in office.

In a midterm election year, though, views of the president can outweigh perceptions of the opposition party. Trump’s approval rating in the poll stands at 37%, the worst of his second term in CNN polling and roughly equivalent to his 36% approval rating at this point in his first term.

And his disapproval rating, at 63%, is numerically the highest of either term, one point above the previous high of 62% as he was leaving office in January 2021.

CNN’s Poll of Polls average, which puts Trump’s approval rating a few points higher at 41% as of Sunday, charts a similar trend since January. Approval of the president has dipped across partisan and demographic lines since the summer in CNN’s polling.