WASHINGTON – President Trump has hit a new low in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll following weeks of defections from Republican senators and squabbling over sympathy calls to the families of fallen soldiers.

Trump's approval rating dropped to 38%, compared to 58% who disapproved of his job performance. That topped his previous low of 39% approval in the same poll May.

The president has sunk even lower in other polls – as low as 33% in a Quinnipiac poll conducted in August.

The latest poll of 900 adults, conducted over four days last week, comes as a warning sign for congressional Republicans a year before the midterm elections, when the president's party often suffers losses.

Some Republicans are already choosing to retire in the Trump era. Last week, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., announced he would not seek re-election in a speech criticizing Trump's leadership without mentioning the president by name. Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who also declined to seek re-election in Tennessee, called Trump an "utterly untruthful president" in their escalating feud.

Nearly half of registered voters in the poll (48%) said they would prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, while 41% want to keep the current Republican majorities.

The president suffered his biggest losses in the latest poll among independents, only one-third of whom continued to back him. In September, his support stood at 41%. His backing among whites also dipped, led by those without a college degree.

The 38% approval rating is the worst in modern times for a president at the nine-month mark of his presidency. George W. Bush was at 88% the month after the Sept. 11 attacks, while Barack Obama was at 51% and Bill Clinton was at 47% in October of 2009 and 1993, respectively.

In the following years, Clinton's Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress, while Obama's Democrats forfeited the House of Representatives. One bright spot for Republicans this time: House members will be running largely in districts drawn by GOP state legislatures.

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