Could a Shutdown End Trump’s Honeymoon?

Or will his approval numbers remain as immutable as they were during his first term?

Life in general and politics in particular are filled with uncertainty and countless possible scenarios. A President Trump unrestrained by reelection constraints just takes it to a whole new level.

If there is no agreement over raising the debt ceiling by March 14, at least a partial shutdown will occur, adding even more volatility to an already churning Washington.

One challenge is that there may not be 218 members of the House who would agree on much more than the Pledge of Allegiance. House Republicans are hardly monolithic; some, it seems, are only marginally attached to the notion of having a national government. Even some of the touchstone issues that used to bring Republicans together don’t do that anymore.

One thing worth remembering as all of this unfolds is that rarely does either party or any political figure emerge as the “winner” of a shutdown showdown. There are generally only “losers” and“survivors.”

Could such a crisis affect Trump politically? Probably not as much as you’d think, no matter if he receives credit or blame.

Historically, presidents have enjoyed early honeymoon periods, then watched their popularity oscillate with events. President George W. Bush’s approval rating started to slide just before the 9/11attacks, then soared to 90 percent. He remained well above 50 percent for a long time, but as the IraqWar became less popular, so did Bush, with his approval dropping to as low as 25 percent. The span of distance between his highest and lowest Gallup approval ratings was a remarkable 65 points. He averaged 49 percent approval over his entire eight years.

President Obama’s approval span was not nearly that wide, hitting a peak of 69 percent and a trough of 38 percent—a 31-point difference. The approval rating for his two terms averaged 48 percent.President Biden’s highest Gallup approval was 57 percent in January 2021 and again that April, before inflation began spiking. His low point of 36 percent arrived in July 2024—a 21-point difference. His four-year average was just 42 percent. In Trump’s first term , his Gallup approval rating never reached or exceeded 50 percent, nor did it fall below 34 percent. His average worked out to 41 percent. Trump's only Gallup approval so far in his second term was 47 percent in January (48 percent disapproval).

The poll getting the most attention this month was from CBS News . Released just over a week ago, it showed Trump with 53 percent approval (47 percent disapproval), a higher approval rating than any reputable poll showed in his entire first four years. The CBS poll could be the beginning of a trend or a slight outlier: Nine other reputable polls have measured his approval since he returned to office, pegging the number between 45 and 49 percent (disapproval between 41 and 52 percent). The two blue-chip polls were a gigantic sample of 5,086 adults by Pew Research, which put Trump’s approval at 47 percent (disapproval 51 percent), and an AARP-sponsored poll of 3,000 voters of allages conducted by the bipartisan polling team of Fabrizio-Ward, pegging Trump’s approval at 48percent (disapproval 47 percent).

Given the record of minimal elasticity in Trump's numbers, it seems unlikely that he can sustain numbers higher than his first-term peak of 49 percent nor his low of 34 percent. Trump could discover a cure for cancer and end poverty and war, and a substantial group still would never backhim. A similarly sized group could, in his own words, witness him shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, and their support for him would not budge. This reflects the new era of hyper-partisanship in which a substantial group of Americans will never approve a president of the opposite party.

The few people who really are in the middle tend to read, watch, or listen to news less than partisans.To the extent that they have an opinion at all, directionally speaking they tend to agree with Trump on things like the border and the size of the federal government.

The midterm elections look to be a mixed bag. With Republicans holding a microscopic edge in the House and history showing that the party holding the presidency loses House seats in 90 percent of midterms (with losses averaging about two dozen seats), it seems very likely that Democrats will take the House. But the opposing argument comes when you look at some of the tightest districts.

The folks down in Charlottesville at Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball report that Democrats are defending 13 seats in House districts that Trump carried, while Republicans only need worry about three seats in districts where Kamala Harris prevailed.

What usually matters most is exposure—how many seats each party is defending, how many of those are open seats without the advantage of incumbency, and how many have been in the opposition party’s hands at some point in the last few years.

Close readers of this column know that the midterm pattern is not nearly as strong in Senate races. It matters a lot which seats are up where and what happened six and 12 years before. The fact that two Democratic incumbents, Michigan’s Gary Peters and Minnesota's Tina Smith, who would have been seeking reelection next year in tough states, have now decided not to run is a bad sign for Democrats on several levels. Even if they were victorious in their races, Peters and Smith likely realize they stand little chance of being in a Senate majority anytime soon. At this point, Democrats are as likely to suffer a net loss of Senate seats as to make gains.

To sum it up, don’t expect an end to the volatility anytime soon.