President Trump headed into Tuesday night\u2019s State of the Union speech projecting confidence in his personal power to \u201cMake America Great Again,\u201d despite the woes he says he\u2019s been saddled with by his Democratic predecessors.<\/p>\n
He also stood in a uniquely precarious position \u2014 facing some of his lowest approval ratings ever, plummeting support on his signature issue of immigration<\/a>, unrelenting pressure from the slow rollout<\/a> of the Epstein files, a sluggish economy, mounting international tensions<\/a> and looming midterm elections<\/a> in which Democrats appear poised to make gains<\/a>, possibly even retaking control in Congress.<\/p>\n Trump remains popular among his base and remarkably infallible in the eyes of his loyalist administration<\/a> and still commands extraordinary deference<\/a> from many leaders in his party. Many of his supporters share his confidence and suggest polls showing slipping support are bogus. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is what \u2018America first\u2019<\/a> looks like,\u201d said Paul Dans, former head of the conservative Project 2025 playbook, which Trump has largely adopted<\/a>. \u201cThe last year has been phenomenal. He has done more in one year than most presidents would accomplish in a whole term.\u201d<\/p>\n Nonetheless, political observers see a landscape of vulnerabilities for the second-term president heading into the 2026 elections.<\/p>\n \u201cHe stands at a moment of rapidly declining political capital,\u201d said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant in California. \u201cFrom a historical perspective, a president in year six, heading into what looks like a rough midterm, is probably not going to rise any higher again, in terms of their political equity \u2014 so he\u2019s probably past his peak of power.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump is in \u201cabout as weak a position\u201d as any president heading into a State of the Union address in recent memory, agreed Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic strategist and director of the Dornsife Center for the Political Future at USC. \u201cI don\u2019t think the country sees Trump as the solution to anything at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, however, Trump is not acting like other weakened presidents, Shrum noted.<\/p>\n Instead of taking stock and turning away from unpopular policies, including on immigration and the economy, he is signaling that he simply won\u2019t accept<\/a> major midterm losses for his party \u2014 which leaves the nation in \u201ccompletely uncharted waters,\u201d Shrum said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have a president who by all traditional standards has been weakened seriously, but who acts as though he had maximum strength,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a president who is deeply unpopular, who by every measure should see his party do very poorly in the midterms, but who seems determined to interfere in the midterm elections in any possible way that he can.\u201d<\/p>\n In the polls<\/p>\n A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll<\/a> released Sunday showed 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump\u2019s job performance, with 39% saying they approve. The last time Trump fared so poorly in that poll was shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n A CNN poll by SSRS<\/a> released Monday found that Trump\u2019s job approval rating stood at 36%, with a 19-point drop in approval among Latinos in the last year, an 18-point drop among Americans younger than 45, and a 15-point drop to just 26% approval among political independents \u2014 the lowest it has ever been during either of his terms.<\/p>\n Shrum said such sharp declines in support among Latino and independent voters do not bode well for Trump or for other Republicans on the ballot in November \u2014 especially given that the president, who often dismisses polling not in his favor, does not appear inclined to alter his policies.<\/p>\n Dans, who is running for Senate in South Carolina against Republican incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham, dismissed Trump\u2019s slumping polling numbers as \u201cfake or engineered,\u201d and said if anything, the president should \u201cgo full Trump\u201d \u2014 doubling down on his agenda.<\/p>\n On immigration<\/p>\n Trump has polled well on immigration in the past. But his heavy-handed crackdown \u2014 with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents arresting people without criminal records, detaining U.S. citizens and legal immigrants and killing U.S. citizens<\/a> in Minneapolis \u2014 has shifted that. The Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found 58% of adults disapprove of his handling of immigration.<\/p>\n Stutzman said Trump and his team obviously realize their approach has rubbed voters the wrong way, which is why they recently shuffled the leadership team<\/a> in Minneapolis. But the broader policy has remained in place and \u201cthe numbers are still cratering on them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Shrum said that if Trump \u201cwere intent on improving his situation, he would change the way ICE behaves, and might put some different faces on the effort that he\u2019s making, and might focus on people who are actually convicted criminals<\/a>,\u201d but instead, he and other administration officials \u201cseem determined to plow ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n Dans said Trump received \u201ca clear mandate in 2024<\/a> with respect to the mass migration, and it was to reverse and end that flow,\u201d and that\u2019s what he\u2019s doing. \u201cEveryone is going back home.\u201d<\/p>\n On Epstein<\/p>\n Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing involving the late disgraced financier and convicted sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein, a onetime acquaintance. However, questions about Epstein\u2019s ties to Trump and other powerful men have persisted<\/a> as evidence from multiple investigations into Epstein\u2019s abuses continue to be released. <\/p>\n Republicans in Congress broke with the president<\/a> and joined Democrats to pass a bill requiring the records\u2019 release last year. Justice Department officials have slow-walked the release by redacting and withholding records, further dragging it out. <\/p>\n The records contained unproven accusations of wrongdoing by Trump<\/a>, which he has denied. Democrats and Republicans alike have argued more records need to be released.<\/p>\n On the economy<\/p>\n Trump was dealt a blow last week when the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a sweeping set of tariffs<\/a> he\u2019d imposed on international trading partners. <\/p>\n Trump has said his administration will use other legal authorities to impose similar or even stiffer tariffs, despite polls showing his tariffs are unpopular.<\/p>\n The Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, which was taken before the court ruling, found that 57% of respondents disapproved<\/a> of Trump\u2019s managing of the economy, and 64% disapproved<\/a> of his handling of tariffs.<\/p>\n Dans said that Trump has already tempered inflation<\/a> and that \u201cthe economy is ready to take off like a rocket ship,\u201d especially if Congress gives the president the space to continue rolling out policies aimed at returning jobs to the U.S. that long ago went overseas. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really focused on reindustrialization,\u201d Dans said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t going to happen overnight, but all the building blocks are being put in place.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead<\/p>\n Stutzman said there is already evidence that Trump \u201cdoesn\u2019t quite have a grip on Congress\u201d like he used to, given recent votes on the Epstein files and tariffs<\/a>, and that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court is still willing to rule against him, as it did on his tariffs.<\/p>\n