Key facts
- Some 78% of voters named the rising cost of living as very important or the most important issue in their vote, the poll found.
- On handling the cost of living, voters preferred Democrats over Republicans 43% to 32%, per the poll.
- Some 50% of independents said their congressional vote was a vote against Trump, the poll found.
- Some 49% of Democratic voters said they were very enthusiastic about voting, compared with 33% of Republicans.
- The poll surveyed 1,765 US adults online with a margin of error of 2 percentage points, per Reuters/Ipsos.
US President Donald Trump's job approval rating stood at 32% ahead of the November 3 congressional midterm elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on November 2, 2026. The reading was unchanged from a week earlier and 1 percentage point above his record-low 31% two weeks before, Reuters reported.
Asked how they would vote in a generic congressional ballot, 46% of respondents preferred Democrats and 38% preferred Republicans, an 8-percentage-point Democratic advantage. That gap was narrower than the 11-point lead Democrats held in a Reuters/Ipsos poll a week earlier.
Among registered voters, 50% of independents said their congressional vote was a vote against Trump, 13% said it was a vote for him and 33% said he was not a factor. Some 78% of voters said the rising cost of living would be very important or the most important issue in deciding their vote, and on that issue voters picked Democrats over Republicans by 43% to 32%.
Some 49% of Democratic voters said they were very enthusiastic about voting, compared with 33% of Republicans. The poll surveyed 1,765 US adults online and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Trump is not on the ballot, but he campaigned for Republican candidates seeking to keep control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. He closed his campaigning on the afternoon of November 2, 2026 with a rally at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, where he said: "For some reason, the sitting president doesn't win the midterms. But we gave this a very strong shot."