EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Approval Rating Drops In Reader Survey After 100 Days, Could Stock Market Be To Blame? – SPDR S&P 500 (ARCA:SPY)

President Donald Trump recently passed the 100-day milestone for his second presidential term after winning the 2024 election.

A new Benzinga reader poll shows Trump’s approval rating for his first 100 days in the White House and how that compares to a survey from his first 52 days.

What Happened: Presidents are often scored on their first 100 days in office as a milestone figure used to show what has been accomplished in terms of campaign promises, laws passed and voters’ feelings about the candidate after they officially take office.

A new Benzinga reader poll shows Trump’s approval rating after his first 100 days in the White House.

“How do you feel about Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in office?” Benzinga asked.

The results were:

• I didn’t vote for Trump: 46%
• I voted for Trump and approve of his first 100 days in office: 34%
• I voted for Trump but disapprove of his first 100 days in office: 14%
• I voted for Trump but have no strong opinion: 6%

After stripping out the 46% of voters who did not vote for Trump, the president’s approval rating from people who voted for him in the poll looks like this:

• Favorable: 63.1%
• Unfavorable: 25.4%
• No opinion: 1%

The poll shows a strong favorable rating for Trump, but it comes with the caveat that this is voters who selected him in the 2024 presidential election.

Trump’s favorable rating is also down from a Benzinga survey that asked the same question after 52 days back in March. In the previous poll, 37% said they approved Trump’s first 52 days, while 15% disapproved. Forty-four percent said they didn’t vote for Trump, and 4% said they voted for Trump and had no strong opinion.

In that previous poll, Trump had a favorable rating of 69.4% and an unfavorable rating of 28.6% when the respondents who did not vote for him were removed.

This means that Trump’s approval rating has gone down, while his unfavorable rating also went down with more voters undecided on their approval level of the current president.

If the 46% of the poll who said they didn’t vote for Trump were included, the approval rating would likely be significantly lower. The 63.1% favorable rating is based only on the Benzinga readers who answered the poll and voted for Trump in the 2024 election.

Read Also: Trump 100 Days: If You Invested $1,000 In SPY, QQQ, Bitcoin When Trump Was Inaugurated, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today

Why It’s Important: Other 100-day polls show low approval ratings for Trump. An Emerson College poll shows a 45% approval rating and a 45% disapproval rating. The remaining 10% are neutral on the current president.

This approval rating is down two percentage points from Trump’s first 50 days, while the disapproval rating stayed the same.

One item likely weighing on the minds of Benzinga readers in the poll is the performance of the S&P 500 during Trump’s first 100 days in office.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY tracks the S&P 500. It was down 7.8% from the closing price on Jan. 17, before Trump’s inauguration, to the closing price on Trump’s 100th day.

According to CNBC, the drop in the S&P 500 was the worst start to a four-year term since Richard Nixon in 1973, citing data from CFRA Research.

In 1973, the S&P 500 fell 9.9% in the first 100 days of Nixon’s presidency. For comparison, the S&P 500 has an average return of 2.1% in the first 100 days of a presidency, dating back to 1944.

Also, keep in mind that recent presidents had some of the best stock market performances in their first 100 days in office. Here are the recent returns and their rating since 1944:

• 2009: Barack Obama, +8.4%, fourth best
• 2013: Barack Obama, +7.5%, sixth best
• 2017: Donald Trump, +5.0%, seventh best
• 2021: Joe Biden, +8.5%, third best
• 2025: Donald Trump, -7.9%, twentieth and second worst

Markets traded higher in November and December after Trump’s win, with some of the largest companies in the world hitting new all-time highs. January and February also saw gains after Trump took office.

In March and April, attention shifted towards economic and foreign policies, with markets diving in April after Trump’s tariff announcement.

While voters have different reasons why they voted for a candidate and different criteria they score a favorable or approval rating on, Benzinga readers could be knocking Trump’s rating down due to the poor stock market performance during his first 100 days.

The stock market saw strong returns during Trump’s last presidential term, which included his first year in office and the four-year term.

Trump’s first 100 days represent a portion of the 1,461 days the president would have under his current term, or roughly 6.8%.

Did You Know?

The study was conducted by Benzinga from April 30, 2025, through May 2, 2025. It included the responses of a diverse population of adults 18 or older. Opting into the survey was completely voluntary, with no incentives offered to potential respondents. The study reflects results from 225 adults.

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