When Mark Mitchell says a poll smells fishy, it’s worth paying attention. The former head pollster at Rasmussen Reports now runs The Honest Poll, an independent polling and media company he founded, and he’s sounding the alarm about a push to drive President Donald Trump’s approval rating into the 20s before the midterms.
Mitchell laid out his case in a video posted to The Honest Poll’s YouTube channel.
“Well, they’re doing it again. Major pollsters are absolutely lying about the numbers,” Mitchell said. “And it was the most predictable thing in the world.”
According to Mitchell, two pollsters have already dragged Trump toward that floor, and both did it within days of each other.
“They’re gonna try and turn Donald Trump into George W. Bush, or, even worse. Jimmy Carter,” he said.
Exhibit A comes from American Research Group, which just put Trump at 29% approval and 68% disapproval. You don’t have to be a polling expert to know that number is garbage. But here’s some extra context: At Rasmussen, Mitchell never recorded Joe Biden below 38%, and Biden finished his term at roughly 45% or 46% in its tracking. The same ARG chart that now shows Trump at 29% had him at about 37% or 38% for most of his first term, a stretch when Rasmussen showed him at 48% to 50% through the back half.
“Now, obviously, this number is crap,” Mitchell said. He also noted that it’s the lowest approval figure anyone has published for Trump across either term. “And, of course, the problem is it will embolden everybody else,” he warned.
The broader data shows what a real number looks like. The RealClearPolitics average has Trump at 39.5% approval, 20 points underwater. The Honest Poll’s own September national tracking poll put him at 42% among registered voters, 15 points underwater. Then come the outliers. The Economist/YouGov has him at 35% and 28 points underwater, while Reuters/Ipsos showed 35% among registered voters and, for reasons nobody can quite explain, also published an all-adults number of 32%.
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Mitchell does see some good news.
More of the pollsters feeding the aggregate are trying to get it right, and that track record counts for something. Back in 2024, the RealClearPolitics average beat both 538 and the Silver Bulletin in predicting Trump’s national popular-vote margin and his performance in the battleground states. That makes it harder for a handful of outliers to hijack the conversation, though it won’t stop them from trying.
“A lot of these left-leaning pollsters that have sort of like inherent selection and confirmation bias are going to start testing those lows. They’re going to start pushing Trump lower,” Mitchell said.
Expect a lot more of them.
The Bush comparison shows where this is headed. On this date in 2006, George W. Bush sat about thirteen points underwater. After Republicans lost the midterms that fall, his approval slid into the mid-20s, and he left office at 26%. That’s the template. Pollsters want voters to see Trump as a lame duck before anyone casts a single midterm ballot, because a president who looks finished makes his party look finished, too.
Trump does have real problems in the numbers, and Mitchell doesn’t pretend otherwise. His own polling has Trump well underwater, which doesn’t bode well for the upcoming midterms. And there may not be time to turn things around.
“People have made their opinions clear about what they think about Republican Party governance led by Donald Trump. And the reviews are not great,” he said.
Still, a president at 40% and a president at 29% tell two very different stories. ARG’s number sits more than ten points below the RealClearPolitics average and thirteen points below The Honest Poll’s own September figure. Trump’s real approval rating hovers right around 40%, and anyone who tells you it’s in the 20s is selling you a narrative, not real data.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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