United States President Donald Trump told a cheering crowd in Tennessee on Saturday that his supporters would applaud him even if he said “the stupidest things”. The joke came days after two national polls pointed to growing unease among the voters who returned him to the White House in 2024. He made the remark at a campaign rally in Clarksville for Senator Bill Hagerty and gubernatorial candidate Marsha Blackburn, with the November 3 midterm elections about three weeks away.
“I’m very popular. I really am,” Trump told the crowd, before describing the atmosphere at his rallies. “There’s such love in these rooms,” he said. “I could say the stupidest things, and you’d clap.” He corrected himself almost at once: “But we don’t say the stupidest things. We say things of common sense.”
The audience laughed and clapped. Trump then listed a secure border, low taxes and a strong military as examples of what he meant by common sense. He also brushed aside commentary that his unpopularity could cost Republican candidates their seats. “You’ll win because I am popular,” he told supporters.
The president questioned why he needed to campaign in Tennessee at all, a state he carried in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Hagerty is seeking re-election to the Senate, while Blackburn, a sitting senator, is the Republican nominee for governor. Trump said he had come to thank the people who elected him “three separate times”, and urged them to turn out in November.
The numbers behind the worry are hard to miss. A Pew Research Center survey released on October 8 found that 67 per cent of Trump’s 2024 voters now approve of his performance, down from 75 per cent in July, 83 per cent at the start of 2026 and 95 per cent early in his second term. That is a 28-point fall among his own voters in under two years. The slide is sharpest among younger supporters, with only 49 per cent of his 2024 voters aged 19 to 34 approving, against 76 per cent of those aged 50 and above.
A separate survey adds to the picture. A Politico and PF Global poll found that 26 per cent of Trump’s 2024 voters believe the Republican candidate in their district would stand a better chance if they broke with the president. Asked about specific issues, 61 per cent of those voters said Republicans should break with Trump on the economy and 57 per cent on the Iran war.
The cost of living sits at the centre of that discontent. Fifty-nine per cent of all respondents in the Politico poll said groceries, fuel and other expenses had become less affordable since Trump took office, including 40 per cent of his own 2024 voters. Forty-four per cent said their personal finances had worsened over the same period, while 21 per cent said they had improved.
Enthusiasm is the other concern for Republican strategists. Pew found that Trump’s 2024 voters are less united behind Republican candidates, at 77 per cent, than Kamala Harris’s voters are behind Democratic candidates, at 87 per cent. Polling also suggests the Democrats hold an edge in the contest for a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
The November 3 vote will decide control of both chambers of Congress, which Republicans currently hold. The result will shape how much of Trump’s agenda can pass through Congress in the second half of his term. Trump, for his part, told the Clarksville crowd he was confident Republicans would hold their ground.