New Poll Spells Trouble for Trump and Republicans

Good evening! President Trump headed out to Joint Base Andrews this evening, where a 100-foot-long red carpet was rolled out to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is making his first visit to the United States since he attended a summit in San Francisco in 2023 and his first state visit to Washington, D.C., since September 2015. (Trump and Xi also held a 2017 summit at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.) "Trump's decision to greet Xi shows how far the U.S. president is going to honor China's leader," the Associated Press noted. Trump will host Xi at the White House tomorrow.\n\nHere's what else we're watching.

With Voters Focused on the Economy, Republicans Face Grim Outlook for Midterms

All signs are pointing to a midterm election dominated by voters' concerns about the economy, and a poll released Wednesday shows how that could be bad news for President Trump and his fellow Republicans.

In a new CNN poll, more than two-thirds of registered voters said the economy is an "extremely important" factor in how they'll vote in November, a higher percentage than in the previous two midterm elections. In a major shift, a larger percentage of voters said they agree with Democrats more than Republicans on the economy, a reversal of the more typical arrangement.

Voters seem extremely unhappy with Trump's handling of the economy, with just 27% expressing approval versus 73% expressing disapproval. Just 28% of respondents said economic conditions are good, with two-thirds saying Trump had made economic conditions worse and majorities seeing the Iran war and Trump's tariffs as negative factors for their personal finances. On inflation, a mere 20% said they approve of Trump's handling of the issue.

These historically low numbers on the economy are shaping a historically low overall approval rating. Just 33% of poll respondents said they approve of Trump's job performance, the lowest number in his political career. The percentage of people who "strongly" approve of his performance also fell to a career low of 13%, while a majority - 51% - now say they "disapprove strongly."

Policies not helping: Republicans had hoped that their policies, including the massive tax cut package they passed in 2025, would help them in the election, but few respondents in the CNN poll report that the changes in the tax law or the new federal savings accounts for newborns and children are benefiting them.

Instead, a high percentage of voters say they feel pressured in the current economy. Asked to describe their sense of their financial futures, 57% said they feel "uncertainty" and 49% said they feel "stress." Just 23% said they feel "certainty," a 7-point drop from the spring. More than a third said they aren't sure they can maintain their standard of living, a more negative reading than at the end of the Great Recession.

Voters sometimes use their ballots to send a message, but there's bad news for Republicans on that front, as well. In August 2025, 28% of voters said that if they were to vote for Congress, their vote would be used to send a message of support for Trump. That number has now dropped to 19%. At the same time, the percentage of voters who said they would use their vote to send a message that they oppose Trump rose from 39% to 44%.

Still, while there's good news for Democrats in the poll - including a more fired-up voting base and an 8-point edge for a generic Democrat over a generic Republican - voters are skeptical about both major parties. Congressional Democrats are just as unpopular as congressional Republicans, with roughly only a quarter of poll respondents expressing approval for either one.

The bottom line: Trump's management of the economy is looking like a strongly negative factor for Republicans this fall, likely giving Democrats an edge, even if voters aren't exactly crazy about either party right now.

White House Backs Off NIH Funding Plan: Reports

The White House is reportedly backing off a plan to issue an executive order that would give President Trump's political appointees power over National Institutes of Health grants.

Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters Wednesday that the Trump administration won't move ahead with the order. Collins and other lawmakers had pressured the White House to abandon the plan, arguing that it would run counter to congressional intent and the traditional grantmaking process, which is meant to award funding based on perceived scientific merit and importance rather than political ideology.

"We should not have a politicized process for awarding research and biomedical grants to institutions. It needs to be merit-based, and I'm glad that the White House listened to those of us who were making that argument," Collins told reporters, according to The Hill.

The administration's plan reportedly could also have threatened to derail any talks to fund the government by the December 11 deadline set by the latest stopgap spending agreement passed by Congress.

Still, Semafor reported Wednesday that, while the White House is stepping back from its initial plan, it may still issue an executive order that takes a different approach to the NIH grants. One unnamed source reportedly told Semafor that the administration wants to revisit the issue after November's elections and do so in a way that doesn't look like political interference with science.

Quote of the Day

"I am the code."

President Trump, as quoted in a Washington Post piece dismissing concerns raised by the first architect on the new White House ballroom that certain elements of the new structure violated building fire and safety codes.

The architect, James McCrery II, "withdrew from the project last October after warning repeatedly that Trump was insisting on a preliminary design that did not provide adequate emergency exit routes or fire-containment measures," The Post's Sarah Blaskey and Jonathan O'Connell report.

Trump reportedly countered that building codes don't apply to White House construction.

Blaskey and O'Connell write that White House renovations are usually handled by federal agencies that have to comply with building safety standards to the "maximum extent feasible," with exceptions for national security reasons. "But Trump's White House construction projects are being routed through the Executive Residence, a tiny office that is not a federal agency and is therefore exempt from rules governing agencies."

Blaskey and O'Connell write that, based on the records reviewed by The Post, it's not clear if the safety issues raised by McCrery have been resolved by the architecture firm that took over the project. That firm, Shalom Baranes Associates, declined to comment to The Post. A White House spokesman said in a statement to the paper that it would be "factually false and totally inaccurate" to say that McCrery's resignation "was in any way associated with code issues." The statement also said that safety issues "have been addressed and resolved continuously as the design has evolved."

Fiscal News Roundup

• Judge Hears Arguments Without Immediately Ruling in Lawsuit Over White House Ban on 3 News Outlets – Associated Press
• Judge Skeptical of White House Press Ban on Politico, MS NOW, CNN: Due Process 'Wasn't Followed' – The Hill
• Trump Administration Backing Off NIH Grant Order Amid Pushback – Semafor
• 'Dammit, Something Has to Happen': White House Preparing Plan for 90-Day Diesel Exports Ban – Politico
• Bond Yields Make Biggest One-Day Jump Since Trump's Tariffs Rattled Markets – New York Times
• US Five-Year Yields Exceed 5% for First Time Since 2007 – Bloomberg
• Trump Officials Weigh Rolling Back Beef Import Plan as GOP Midterm Panic Spreads – Politico
• Trump Says His Ballroom Will House a Drone Port. The Secret Service Already Has One Next Door – Associated Press
• Johnson Calls for 'Resolution' of Iran War – The Hill
• RFK Jr.'s Enhanced Security Was Funded With Money From Minority Health Office – Wall Street Journal
• Sen. Bernie Sanders Unveils Bill to Ban Artificial Superintelligence and Create Department of AI – Associated Press
• Trump's Signature Tax Bill Is Starting to Bite Before the Election – New York Times
• Republicans Dump Cash Into Red States as They Try to Hold the Line Against Democrats in the Midterms – Associated Press

Views and Analysis

• Trump's Midterm Woes Deepen Amid Worsened Economic Backdrop: CNN Poll – Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN
• A Lot's Changed Since Xi Jinping's Last US State Visit. Mostly in China's Favor – Simone McCarthy, CNN
• The US Is Badly Losing Its Trade War With China – Scott Linciome, Bloomberg
• How a Ban of Diesel Exports Could Lead to Higher Prices - Even in the US – Rachel Lerman and Federica Cocco, Washington Post
• A Diesel Export Ban Is a Bad Idea. Trump Needs It Anyway – Liam Denning, Bloomberg
• Limiting Diesel Exports Would Be a Trump Midterm Gift to Democrats – Washington Post Editorial Board
• The Mistake That May Finally Get the Republican Base to Ditch Trump – David Wallace-Wells, New York Times
• Here's One Thing Joe Manchin Was Right About – David Kirp, New York Times
• There's a Secret Third Path to Escaping America's Debt Trap – Kathryn Anne Edwards, Bloomberg
• Scientific Research Is an Economic Blessing. Keep Trump Cronyism Out – Washington Post Editorial Board
• Trump Has Skirted Concerns About Corruption. Donald Trump Jr.'s Wedding Could Change That – Aaron Blake, CNN