32 percent: the bill presented to Trump at the gas pump

Democracy has its own peculiar form of justice: slow, clumsy, sometimes maddeningly delayed, but it arrives in the end - and now Donald Trump's Middle East war has brought the bill. According to a four-day Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Sunday, the president's approval rating has fallen to 32 percent, the lowest of his entire political career. Esteemed American public opinion has come to this realization a bit late, but the timing - barely six weeks before the November 3 midterm elections - is pure political poetry.

Only 73 percent of Republicans still support the president, down from 82 percent a week earlier. Nine points in a single week, within his own camp - this is not defection by Democrats or independents, but a crack in the hardcore base, and for a president there is no more ominous sign than that. Only 17 percent of Americans are satisfied with how the cost of living is being handled, and among Republican voters, for the first time, more are dissatisfied with Trump's economic policy (51 percent) than approve of it (44 percent). This is the moment when the tribe begins to question the chief, and once that starts, it is hard to stop - his former colleague and admirer, Viktor Orbán, could already tell him about that firsthand.

Only 24 percent of Americans support the war in Iran, which is no longer just a weak number but a policy flatly rejected. Since the war began in February, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped to a fraction of its former volume, and fuel prices have surged - a pain every American feels directly in their wallet. The retail price of diesel crossed six dollars a gallon for the first time in September, with the American Automobile Association recording a record of $6.23 on the 14th, while diesel inventories are at their lowest for this time of year since record-keeping began in 1982. This hits more than just drivers: diesel powers tractors, trucks and factories, so the price hike ripples through every store shelf. According to Reuters, the record price is now worrying even the Republican Party ahead of the elections. No geopolitical seminar is needed to understand what's happening - just look at the pump meter.

Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a promise to halt inflation and end foreign wars. Twenty months later, he has reversed both promises: he launched a new war, and he himself drove up fuel prices, one of the most painful forms of inflation. When the military route proved to be a dead end, he announced in August "the most merciless economic operation of all time" against Iran, yet nothing of that is being felt at the pumps. There is one figure in the poll that Trump would least like to hear: the current 32 percent is lower than any number ever recorded for Joe Biden. The same Biden whose presidency was also marked by rising inflation, and who, after a disastrous debate performance and amid concerns over his age, ultimately abandoned his bid for reelection. For years, Trump built his image as the counterpoint to Biden's decline - and now it turns out that his own low point is lower than anything ever measured for his predecessor.

Looking ahead to the November 3 elections, the picture is even worse. Forty-three percent of registered voters say they would vote for the Democrats in the congressional elections, compared to 35 percent for the Republicans. This eight-point gap is the largest Democratic lead Reuters/Ipsos has measured this year. If the Republicans lose even one chamber, Trump's agenda will be drastically constrained for the remaining two years of his term, and the unrestricted room for maneuver he has enjoyed so far will disappear. Immigration, once his strongest card, has also become a double-edged sword: within his own camp, 79 percent still support the hardline approach, but among Americans overall only 36 percent do, while 55 percent oppose it. Several Republican allies have warned that the aggressive deportation campaign could alienate those with recently immigrated family members, including some Hispanic voters who backed him in significant numbers in 2024.

Quagmire