Trump Approval at 32 Percent on Election Eve, as Democrats Lead the Generic Ballot 46 to 38
The last Reuters/Ipsos poll before Tuesday's vote puts President Donald Trump's approval at 32 percent — one point above his record low — with Democrats ahead 46 to 38 on the generic congressional ballot and many voters describing their ballot as a vote against the president.
The final national snapshot before Election Day arrived Monday, and it is a hard one for the White House. A five-day Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday puts President Donald Trump's approval rating at 32 percent — unchanged from a week earlier and just above the record-low 31 percent recorded two weeks ago. Reuters reported that a broad swath of the electorate sees its vote in Tuesday's congressional elections as a way to oppose the Republican president.
On the generic ballot — the standard question asking which party voters would pick for Congress — 46 percent of registered voters chose Democrats and 38 percent chose Republicans, an eight-point Democratic lead. Reuters noted signs the race could be tightening ahead of Election Day, a caution this desk will keep attached to the number: a generic ballot is a national mood instrument, not a district-by-district forecast, and it decides nothing in Florida, where voters are choosing a governor, a U.S. senator and their own House members. All 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are contested on November 3.
The poll surveyed 1,765 U.S. adults online and carries a margin of error of 2 percentage points. For Miami-Dade, the largest electorate in Florida, the national numbers land on top of a local reality this desk has filed all day: early voting is closed, more than 5 million Floridians have already cast ballots, and Tuesday's vote happens at assigned precincts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Whatever the national mood is, it gets counted one precinct at a time — starting at sunrise.
