Episode Details

On this week’s Strength In Numbers podcast — the first live episode back from Elliott’s paternity leave! — Elliott and David break down Donald Trump’s new all-time-low approval rating, what gas prices and the war in Iran have done to it, and take a look at The Downballot’s newly updated hexagonal map of all 435 congressional districts.

Here are the big takeaways:

* Trump just hit another all-time approval low. In the 50+1 polling average, his disapproval is at an all-time high of 60.8% against 36.2% approval, a net of about -25. That’s even lower than the previous low the president set the day before. Across every poll out since Friday, his net approval has fallen an average of 1.8 points in the last week, with the sharpest drops among the best pollsters. CNN’s number is as bad or worse than right after January 6th.

* Gas prices explain a lot of the collapse — and cheaper gas won’t undo it. Gas prices and Trump’s inflation approval track each other almost perfectly with a short lag, but the magnitudes on the upswing doesn’t match the downswing. Based on how a small decrease in prices correlated with Trump’s approval in mid-July, we estimate a return to $2.90 gas would still leave him around -30 to -35 on prices. New Strength In Numbers/Verasight polling finds 59% of Americans have cut back on spending, and 51% blame Trump — against 12% oil and gas companies, 12% OPEC, and 8% for Biden. Evidence suggests voters’ opinions of Trump’s economy are hardening.

* Trump’s losing on immigration and deportations now. His immigration approval slid back toward its all-time low over the past two weeks, following ICE shootings in Maine and Houston, and YouGov put him at a record low on the issue this week. Since his inauguration, when the consequences of Trump’s mass deportations agenda have made news, his numbers has fallen. Elliott says Trump is now losing on both of the pillars of his 2024 presidential campaign.

* The bull case for a Democratic wave. Democrats lead the generic ballot by six points on average. But if you add the two to two-and-a-half points midterms historically break against the president’s party by November, plus the two points likely voters have run ahead of registered voters for seven months, you get D+10. That’s not far off from where the Times (D+11), CNN (+10), and Argument/Verasight (+8) put it recently.

* The Downballot’s new congressional hex map is the best answer yet to “try to impeach this.” Daniel Donner’s cartogram gives every district five hexagons and resizes states by population while keeping their shapes. The update from David covers ten states that redrew their maps for 2026. We go through an example in Tennessee.

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