Harry Enten had a blunt reaction when the numbers came up on CNN. “Oh my God,” the network’s chief data analyst said while breaking down Donald Trump’s approval rating among pure independents, a voting bloc that has turned against the president since 2024.
Harry Enten reacts to Donald Trump’s low approval rating number
Pure independents, the voters who refuse to lean toward either party, gave Trump a net approval of -71 points in the polling Enten reviewed. Back in 2024, that same group backed him over Kamala Harris by 15 points. Enten put the gap in stark terms. “This is an 86-point shift away from the President of the United States with the group that ultimately really does determine elections,” he told anchor John Berman. He added that “as pure independents go, usually so goes the nation.”
Enten’s reaction to the economic numbers was similarly striking. “You never see numbers like these,” he said. Among pure independents, Trump’s net approval on the economy was -77 points, compared with a 22-point advantage over Harris among the same group in 2024. That represents a 99-point shift between the two measures. Enten said a Republican running for reelection this fall should view the figures as the “deep depths of hell.”
Enten identified gas prices as a major factor behind the numbers. Among pure independents, just 8% approved of Trump’s handling of gas prices, while 92% disapproved. He described the split as “near uniformity.” The figures come as rising fuel costs have become a significant issue for voters amid the ongoing Iran conflict.
The CNN analyst connected the dots to November. Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has reached record levels among voters overall, he said, and Republican chances of holding the Senate have slipped as gas prices have gone up. With midterms approaching, the president’s collapse among the political middle gives his party plenty to worry about.
