A slight majority of likely voters approve of how President Donald Trump does his job, according to an Oct. 5 Rasmussen poll.
The daily updated poll hasn’t recorded 51 percent approval since May 4.
In the latest poll, 38 percent of likely voters approve of Trump strongly, while 39 percent strongly disapprove.
The poll is based on a telephone survey of 1,500 likely voters conducted on Oct. 2-4; it has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
Trump approval ratings serve as a litmus test of sorts for the upcoming midterm elections as Republicans depend on keeping majorities in both the House and Senate to keep rolling out Trump’s agenda.
Including two special elections, there will be 35 Senate seats up for grabs come Election Day on Nov. 6. Of those, 23 are currently held by Democrats and two by independents—Bernie Sanders and Angus King, who are allied with Democrats. Republicans currently only hold eight of them.
In addition, voters will decide on all 435 voting seats in the House of Representatives, where Republicans currently hold 235 seats versus the Democrats’ 193.
Republicans are now feeling just as pumped about the midterms as Democrats, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll (pdf). In July, 68 percent of Republicans considered the elections “very important” compared to 78 percent of Democrats. In the Oct. 1 poll, the gap narrowed to 80 percent Republican versus 82 percent Democrat.
“On November 6, you will head to the polls, hopefully, in one of the most important Congressional elections of our lifetime,” Trump said Oct. 2 at the Southaven, Mississippi, rally. “The only reason to vote Democrat is if you are tired of winning.”
