Findings

Research Question: How do The Guardian, The New York Times, AP News, and The Washington Post cover drops in Trump’s voter approval ratings following the U.S.-Israel war on Iran?

Overview

This study found that The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and AP News unanimously framed Trump’s current voter approval ratings as notably diminished.

All four outlets were relatively uniform across all categories. The four outlets were overwhelmingly negative in their descriptions of Trump’s voter approval ratings, as well as Trump himself, his party, and his policies. The Guardian, The New York Times, AP News, and The Washington Post didn’t hesitate to attribute responsibility for Trump’s low ratings to a few causes, namely the Iran war and the economy.

Likewise, nearly every article from all four outlets included some looking ahead to the midterms. Many also broke Trump’s voter approval ratings down by partisanship. While not all articles mentioned this, many brought up Trump’s previous approval ratings from earlier in his second term, his first term, or those of previous presidents.

Finally, none of the articles mentioned Jeffrey Epstein or the Epstein files once.

Negative Sentiment: Trump’s Voter Approval Ratings

Connotation of words used to describe Trump's ratings (1).png

Across all four outlets, none seemed to differ in any substantial way in regards to their framing of Trump’s falling voter approval ratings. All four outlets described Trump’s voter approval using decidedly negative language.

In many cases, this language consisted of one-word adjectives such as “weak.” In others, such as a New York Times piece from March 18, 2026 titled, “A crack in the polling floor puts Trump in new territory,” by Nate Cohn, full sentences are used to communicate the unfortunate state of Trump’s approval ratings. Its first two lines read: “Over the last decade, it’s often been said that President Trump’s support has a low ceiling but a high floor. In this morning’s latest New York Times/Siena poll, whether Mr. Trump really has a high floor and is starting to be put to the test.”

Negative Sentiment: Trump/His Party/His Actions

Although all of the articles focused on Trump’s voter approval ratings, they all zoomed out at some point and placed those ratings into context by describing some of Trump and the Republican Party’s latest actions as well as Trump’s overall job performance. All those descriptions, across all outlets and articles, were as negative as descriptions of Trump’s voter approval ratings overall. Articles rarely described Trump, his party, or his policies well. The average ratio of negative descriptors versus neutral/positive per article was 86.5% to 13.5%.

Attribution of Responsibility

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Attribution of responsibility is common, with every article mentioning the Iran war and economy as potential reasons for Trump’s low voter approval ratings. Many articles specifically mention data from questions in voter opinion polls about specific issues like the war in Iran, the economy, etc.

This category often slightly overlaps with the previous category. Many of Trump's actions, such as the Iran war, are both describes with negative sentiment and framed as responsible.

Sometimes, articles mention the economy in a broad sense. In some instances, articles narrow in on specific facets of the economy and Trump’s economic policy such as inflation or tariffs.

Political Partisanship

Because many voter approval polls about the president ask respondents to identify themselves by party, most articles make note of this as well. Very few articles left out specific breakdowns of Trump’s support amongst Republicans versus his support amongst Democrats. All articles made at least some reference to the partisan nature of Trump’s voter approval ratings.

Some articles go beyond the binary of Republicans and Democrats, and into Trump’s approval ratings amongst Independents or those that categorize themselves as “other.” This makes for some interesting distinctions. From an article by Michael Birnbaum and Scott Clement in The Washington Post, published May 1, 2026: “But support for the war among self-identified Republicans remains high: 79 percent say it was the right decision. Independents who lean toward the Republican Party are roughly split, with 52 percent saying it was the right decision and 46 percent saying it was a mistake.”

"Based on a New York Times/Siena poll of 1,507 registered voters nationwide conducted May 11 to 15. The gray segment is for voters who did not respond or said they didn’t know. Margins are calculated using unrounded percentages."

Graphic: Ashley Cai and Christine Zhang/The New York Times

Political Foresight

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Only a few articles stick strictly to the here and now; most briefly touch on the midterms. This usually comes toward the final third of a particular article. Looking ahead to the midterms isn’t being prioritized to the point where this information is appearing in the nut graf or even the first half of an article in most cases. Usually, mentions of the midterms seem to give articles their “so what?” factor. These articles spell out very blunt data from Trump’s voter approval polls, then almost always pivot to what these numbers could mean for Trump and Republicans down the line.

Comparison

Graphic: Linley Sanders/AP.

Again, in similarity with one another, most articles refer back to Trump’s voter approval ratings earlier this term. This gives the reader something to measure his current voter approval ratings against. Some articles even bring up Trump’s approval ratings during his first term. Only a few articles actually mention the approval ratings of previous presidents, like George W. Bush and Richard Nixon.

Epstein

None of the articles made any mentions or clear references to the Epstein files of Jeffrey Epstein.

This category may have been unusual to code for. However, it did yield interesting results. More about this in the Discussion and Conclusion section.