Most Americans say Trump is growing erratic with age, poll finds

WASHINGTON – Six in 10 Americans including a significant slice of Republicans think President Donald Trump has become erratic as he ages, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The six-day poll concluded on Monday (Feb 23), the day before the 79-year-old president gives his annual State of the Union address to Congress following a month of angry reprimands of lawmakers and judges.

Overall, 61 per cent of respondents in the poll said they would describe Trump as having “become erratic with age.” Some 89 per cent of Democrats, 30 per cent of Republicans and 64 per cent of independents described him this way. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s overall popularity has been little changed in recent months. Some 40 per cent of respondents in the latest poll approved of Trump’s performance as president, up two percentage points from earlier this month. While he started his term with a considerably higher rating at 47 per cent, his approval has held within a point or two of its current level since April.

Aging US leadership

Most Americans think the country’s political leadership is generally too old.

Some 79 per cent of poll respondents agreed with a statement that “elected officials in Washington, DC, are too old to represent most Americans.” The average age in the US Senate is about 64, and in the US House of Representatives, it’s 58.

Democratic respondents were slightly more likely to call for younger politicians, with 58 per cent of them saying top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, 75, was too old to work in government.

Trump returned to office in January 2025 at age 78, becoming the oldest president on inauguration day in history. Since then, he has unveiled new policies and proposals at a dizzying pace, ordering sweeping tariffs on imports from dozens of countries and deploying masked federal agents across the country to crack down on unauthorised immigration.

He has often struck an angry tone in his public remarks, including last week when he said he was “absolutely ashamed” that the conservative-leaning US Supreme Court struck down many of his tariffs as illegal. Trump went on to reinstate a series of new tariffs, arguing he could do so under a different legal authority. In November, he assailed Democratic lawmakers who urged members of the US military to refuse any illegal orders, calling them traitors who could face execution.

Age weighed predecessor Biden 

Trump won the 2024 presidential election in part because his predecessor in the White House – Democrat Joe Biden – was widely seen to have lost mental acuity as he aged in office. Biden ended his tenure at age 82 – older than any president in US history. Trump is on track to beat that record and will be 80 in June.

Only 45 per cent of respondents in the February poll said they would describe Trump as “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges,” down from 54 per cent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in September 2023.

Republicans continue to see the president as sharp, with 81 per cent of them describing the president that way in the latest poll, little changed from the 2023 survey. Among Democrats, the share seeing the president able to deal with challenges fell to 19 per cent from 29 per cent. Among people who don’t identify with either political party, 36 per cent saw Trump holding onto his mental acuity, down from 53 per cent in 2023.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 4,638 US adults nationwide and had a margin of error of two percentage points.

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