- Parents' "very unfavorable" view of Trump rose 7 points to 43% between October and November polls.
- Shutdown-delayed SNAP, LIHEAP, and unpaid federal workers worsened food insecurity and household hardship for families.
- Rising inflation, healthcare premium hikes, and policy choices fuel parental backlash with potential midterm electoral consequences.
As the echoes of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history fade, a fresh poll is painting a stark picture for President Donald Trump: American parents are turning away from him in growing numbers.
It’s not just a blip—it’s a 7-point surge in outright disapproval among moms and dads, the very group whose daily struggles the administration promised to ease.
And while the White House hasn’t weighed in yet, experts say this isn’t happening in a vacuum.
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It’s tied to real pain points, from delayed grocery aid to skyrocketing health premiums, that hit families hardest.
Let’s break down the numbers first, because they’re telling.
What the Latest Numbers Show
Echelon Insights, a respected opinion research firm, just wrapped up its November poll of 1,051 registered voters between November 13 and 17.
Among parents with kids under 18, 43% now say they hold a “very unfavorable” view of Trump.
That’s up from 36% in their October survey, which quizzed 1,010 voters from October 16 to 20.
On the flip side, the share of parents viewing him “very or somewhat favorably” dipped by 3 points. Overall, Trump’s favorability across all voters? Down 5 points month-over-month.
This isn’t some outlier—it’s a steady erosion, and it lines up with the calendar. Most of the gap between those two polls overlapped with the shutdown, that grueling 35-day standoff over border wall funding that left federal workers unpaid and safety nets frayed.
Think about what that meant on the ground.
For starters, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—the lifeline that helps low-income families put food on the table—saw benefits delayed for millions.
In fiscal year 2023 alone, 39% of SNAP recipients were kids under 18, and 11% were toddlers under 5.
Experts Weigh In
“The delay in SNAP benefits during the shutdown was unprecedented and affected millions of Americans, particularly children,” says Taryn Morrissey, a professor and chair of the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University.
Speaking to Newsweek, she didn’t mince words: “Most low-income families, especially households with children, lack the assets or wealth necessary to buffer the negative effects of a substantial, even temporary, dip in resources.”
That “dip” translated to skipped meals, stressed budgets, and a ripple of anxiety through households already stretched thin.
Morrissey points to a body of research underscoring the fallout: Food insecurity doesn’t just mean empty pantries; it harms kids’ health, school performance, and long-term well-being. SNAP, she notes, is a proven counterpunch—studies show it slashes insecurity and boosts access to healthcare.
Yet during the shutdown, that buffer vanished, leaving families to scrape by without the roughly $250 monthly boost per household that SNAP often provides.
Economic Storms Affecting Americans
And it wasn’t just food. Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) payments—crucial for heating homes in winter—got held up too, forcing some to choose between lights and groceries.
Federal employees, including air traffic controllers who kept skies safe without a paycheck, turned to gig jobs or food banks just to stay afloat.
One controller in Atlanta, interviewed amid the chaos, described delivering pizzas after 12-hour shifts: “It’s humiliating, but bills don’t wait for politics.”
Reports like that weren’t isolated; airports nationwide saw delays spike as exhausted staff burned out.
Layer on the bigger economic storm, and you start to see why parents might be fuming. Inflation’s bite has gotten sharper under tariffs the administration pushed hard—remember those campaign pledges to “lower prices and make the economy stronger”?
Instead, everyday costs for eggs, milk, and gas have climbed, exacerbated by bird flu outbreaks jacking up poultry prices just in time for holidays.
Then there’s healthcare: Affordable Care Act plans are facing average 20% premium hikes next year, a gut punch for the 10 million or so enrolled.
For a family of four scraping by on $50,000 a year, that’s hundreds more out of pocket annually. Morrissey ties it all back to policy choices.
“I think that families’ high and rising cost of living and the lack of policy action in making basic necessities—from food, to housing, to diapers, to child care—affordable is leading to understandable frustration with the Trump administration,” she told Newsweek.
She highlights missed opportunities: Programs like paid family leave, child care subsidies, universal preschool, and robust public health insurance could lighten the load.
But the administration, she argues, has prioritized tax cuts for the wealthy—pointing to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 as a stark example of resources flowing “from the poor to the wealthy, and from the younger generations to older generations.”
The Poor Get Poorer
Shana Kushner Gadarian, a political science professor at Syracuse University, sees the shutdown as a turning point that exposed these contradictions.
“The Trump administration continues to do things that are unpopular, and the things that they ran on in the campaign, like lowering prices and making the economy stronger, they are directly countering those promises with other policies,” she said.
The tariffs worsened inflation, the shutdown amplified it, and scrapping a contingency plan for SNAP funding?
That left kids hungry when it didn’t have to.
“The six week long shutdown had to do with all of these issues about healthcare, SNAP funding, the general cost of living, things that really affect American families and it was very clear that the administration was not particularly responsive to the issues that they even ran on in 2024.”
Zoom out, and this parental backlash fits a pattern. Young Americans, in particular, are voicing despair—nearly two-thirds in one recent survey said they’re mulling a move abroad amid these pressures.
Trump’s overall approval hovers in the low 40s, but losing ground with parents—a bloc that votes reliably and shapes the next generation’s views—could ripple into 2026 midterms.
If the economy doesn’t turn a corner soon, with holiday spending already strained and more policy fights looming, these numbers might look rosy in hindsight.
For now, families are left picking up the pieces. As one mom in Ohio posted on social media during the shutdown, “My kids asked why Santa might be late because of ‘government stuff.’ How do you explain that?”
It’s a question echoing far beyond the polls, demanding answers from a White House still silent on the slide.
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