‘Just Not Real!’ CNN Data Guru Brutally Debunks Trump’s Claim He’d Win by 25 Points if He Ran Again

With the midterm elections rapidly approaching and President Donald Trump’s poll numbers cratering, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten analyzed the president’s claims he would be able to beat former Vice President Kamala Harris by 25 points if the 2024 election were run today.

A president’s party typically takes a hit in midterm elections, and numerous signs are pointing to a very grim November for Republicans. Many pollsters have highlighted a direct connection between Trump’s bad polls and GOP congressional candidates’ struggles. Americans’ views on Trump’s handling of the economy — a topic on which he had previously outpolled Democrats — have taken a dive as his second term has progressed, and his war in Iran is extremely unpopular, specifically because of its impact on gas prices.

An AP/NORC poll released this week had Trump significantly underwater on every issue surveyed, along with his approval rating. When asked whether they approve or disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, only 31% approved and 69% disapproved, the worst of any AP/NORC survey from either of Trump’s two terms and lower than even a poll taken in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, in which 41% approved and 58% disapproved.

CNN News Central anchor Sara Sidner introduced the segment by commenting on how Trump was “hitting the campaign trail looking to boost Republicans in ruby red states as polls show some races are too close to call now.”

These were “states Trump won overwhelmingly in 2024,” Sidner added, and even though Trump is not on the ballot this year, he “quipped that if he was the person to be running, if he ran for president today, he’d win by 25%, even though polls have shown he has a very low approval rating.”

Sidner asked Enten to explain what the polls showed about Trump hypothetically winning an election this year, making sure to point out that the Constitution “says he absolutely cannot do it,” to run for a third term.

“He cannot do it,” Enten agreed, and scoffed at “the idea that he could win by 25%” as something that would only be possible “maybe on Planet Krypton.”

“But in the reality world in which we live in, here on Planet Earth,” he continued, Trump winning by 25 points, “it’s just not real.”

Enten brought up the numbers on the screen, showing that Trump had beaten Harris by one point in 2024, and several polls had asked Americans “if you had a chance to vote again, how would you vote?”

Two of these polls had Harris winning by six and eight points, said Enten, “so when you look at these numbers you just go, no, President Trump would not win by 25 points. In fact, he wouldn’t win at all.”

The poll respondents had confirmed that back in 2024, they had voted for Trump “by a point or two, and now in the redo, you see six and you see eight.”

“Therefore, I say, maybe on Planet Krypton, but not here on Planet Earth, that Trump would win by 25,” he concluded.

“I mean, this looks like regret here,” Sidner remarked.

The voters do “have a regret or two,” Enten agreed, “and we’ve seen this in poll after poll after poll — the regret has grown since the beginning of Trump’s presidency.”

Independents “are the ones who are saying, if I get another chance, I am not going to vote for President Trump again,” he continued, pointing out that this group had shifted 20 points in Harris’ favor since 2024, going from supporting Trump by two points then to saying now they would vote for Harris by 18 points.

Sidner asked how long Trump’s approval ratings had been underwater, and Enten replied that he had had a “negative net approval rating” in “all the polls, every single poll since March 29th, 2025 — that is 553 days in a row!”

“Now we are approaching nearly two years in time, and there is no sign whatsoever that President Trump’s numbers are going in the positive direction,” said Enten. “They’re actually going further and further into the deep red sea.”

This was “not about [Trump] running again,” Sidner reiterated, “because the Constitution says he can’t, but it could give you an idea about how people might be feeling about those who supported him — the Republicans in Congress.”

“Exactly right,” Enten concurred. “And President Trump, in poll after poll, his endorsement is a net negative for those Republicans. No wonder that Trump is spending his time in red states and not actually in the swing states of the 2024 election cycle.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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