
The top line story over the past few months has been Donald Trump’s failure on health care. But polls show Trump’s approval numbers on jobs and the economy have crashed even more dramatically, including among Republican voters.

The conventional wisdom says if any issue is going to doom Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress at the ballot box, it will be health care. They have tried over and over to ram through massively unpopular Obamacare repeal bills and failed in spectacular fashion.

But new polling shows Trump's dismal record on the economy is also contributing to a significant drop in his approval ratings — including from his own supporters.

A poll from Associated Press-NORC shows Trump’s net popularity has plummeted 19 points since March, with his approval rating at a dismally low 32 percent. And even support among his Republican base has cratered from 80 percent to 67 percent.


And while Trump’s approval ratings on health care have fallen from 36 percent to 32 percent, his numbers on the economy have dropped even more substantially.

Trump began his presidency slightly above water on the economy. In March, AP-NORC found 50 percent approved of him on economic policy, versus 48 percent disapproved.

Now, his numbers have dropped to 42 percent approval, versus 56 percent disapproval.

Job growth has slowed, and last month saw the first net private sector job loss since 2010, breaking President Barack Obama’s historic 7-year streak.

Nevertheless, we are nowhere near a recession. But the answer to Trump's drop in approval on economic matters may simply be that it's a problem of his own making: He made big promises about the economy which he has not kept.

Despite his long record of bankruptcies, consumer fraud, and refusal to pay his contractors, Trump has spent decades cultivating an image of himself as a successful, brilliant businessman, and this was how he sold himself on the campaign trail.

But nine months into his presidency, Trump has failed to deliver on any of his promises about the economy.

His huge infrastructure plan — which was really just a tax cut for the rich — never happened. His and Ivanka’s childcare plan — which was also really just a tax cut for the rich — never happened. Even if we stretch definitions to the point of absurdity and call his border wall an economic promise, that hasn’t happened either.

The upshot is that for all of Trump’s boasts of his dealmaking prowess, he failed to cut a single deal for the American people. And his worsening poll numbers prove that the American people know it.