No school gives report cards two percent of the way through a term. But this isn’t school. And Americans are so desperate to air out the Oval Office after four years of deceit, decay, disease, and corruption, they’ll take an encouraging update anytime and anywhere they can find it.

Trump need never think again about facing voters himself. Which is liberating. But he still needs them. In just 21 months, his slight congressional majorities of Republicans will be on midterm ballots as a verdict on his historic final term. 

Midterm elections can be tricky for incumbent presidents. Ask Barack Obama. He called it “a shellacking.” Voters in 2010 took his party to the cleaners, taking away 63 Democrat House seats in the worst political spanking in decades.

Obama was all about Obama. So, he didn’t really care that Democrats also lost about 1,000 state legislative seats and governorships, giving Republicans that much more clout for the decade’s required district reapportionments that set the field of political play for the next 10 years. 

Democrats have still not recovered all those losses. That’s how impactful midterms can be.

Running states is where future presidents gain executive experience, name recognition, and donor lists. See Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, each of whom had two terms.

Without a strong farm team at state levels these days, Democrats gave themselves no real choice but Biden in 2020. And then the Word Salad Queen, who had no executive experience. Or an ambitious squad of shady lightweights like Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, and, don’t forget, Minnesota’s bouncy governor, Tim Walz, who so effectively helped Kamala Harris go down to defeat.

Next year’s midterm results will determine how much congressional clout the GOP will keep and how much of a lame duck No. 47 will be for his term’s second half. We already know, for instance, that the GOP must defend 22 of the 35 Senate seats up.

Remember polls showing last fall’s White House race as virtually tied when it wasn’t? Polling early in any new administration is tricky as well.

That’s because many respondents are still stuck in partisan election mode, resistant to change. There’s not much evidence yet to forge informed opinions, not everyone is paying attention, and first impressions can be fickle either way. 

But let’s take a too-early peek at where Trump’s support stands with just one month down and 47 to go. And also scan the serious, fast-approaching government challenges that loom just ahead, none of which can be addressed by another blizzard of executive orders.

The modern president with the highest initial job approval was John F. Kennedy in 1961 at 72 percent, according to Gallup.

When Trump left office in 2021, his final job approval was 34 percent, the same as Jimmy Carter and Bush II.

The latest poll of 2,175 adults by CBS News puts the new president’s job approval at 53 percent (47 disapprove). The approval is higher than at any time in his first term.

Since Trump was elected in November with 49.8 percent of the popular vote (to Harris’ 48.3), that also indicates he’s gained approval among non-supporters.

The CBS poll also found that 58 percent see him as “effective,” 60 percent find him “focused,” 63 percent “energetic,” and 69 percent say he’s ”tough.” Forty-nine percent say he’s doing more than expected, and 61 percent like that.

Is the new president “compassionate”? Thirty-seven percent agree, while 63 percent say No. 

Who genuinely cares? Media tried to label Joe Biden as Mr. Empathy; during the somber remains return of 13 fallen service members killed in his lethally botched Afghan exit, the bored president of the United States kept checking his watch multiple times.

Authentic is more important for a commander in chief who might need to send service volunteers into harm's way.

Here’s something coveted by all politicians; fully 70 percent said Trump is doing the “same things he promised” in the campaign, even if they disagree with that promise. All solid numbers that could never be approached by Biden, who had promised a return to “normalcy.”

An overwhelming 59 percent approve of Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants (41 percent disapprove). Forty-four percent say he’s doing about the Right amount of deportation, 13 percent say Not Enough, and 43 percent say Too Much.

An even larger majority like him sending U.S. troops to the border, 64-36.

A majority (51 percent) believe Trump’s policies like tariffs will raise the price of groceries, 28 percent, who obviously do not buy eggs, see prices declining, and 20 percent see no change.

And that’s where the first signs of brewing trouble appear. Less than one-third (31 percent) say he’s doing enough to lower prices as he promised; two-thirds (66 percent) believe he’s not doing enough.

Remember “It’s the economy, stupid” that torpedoed Bush I’s reelection? Last week, word came that January inflation had inched back up to three percent.

Not surprisingly, given Trump’s famous first-term boast about no new foreign entanglements, his 2025 talk about “taking over Gaza” falls flat. Only 13 percent say that’s a Good idea; 47 percent say Bad. (40 percent Unsure, meaning they could swing either way).

And here’s another caution flag about any national unity whispers: The Pew Research Center asked if Trump would make government better or worse. Forty-one percent said Better. Forty-two percent said Worse.

So far, virtually everything Trump has done has been under his own control, signing executive orders, reversing Biden policies, dispatching DOGE operatives. That decisiveness has gone over well.

Democrats and their supporters have played along by criticizing him and suing to stall his actions, as they did in Trump’s first term over building the border wall. Some judges have agreed with Democrats. 

That’s a risky political stance going forward, given the entrenched American belief that the federal government is bloated and its overpaid bureaucrats move at the speed of sloth.

Very soon, however, Trump must start working with Congress, which thinks it’s a separate branch of government not subject to executive orders. 

Congress must work out a spending bill for the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year in less than a month. A government shutdown looms on March 14 without at least another short-term bandage.

The GOP has a House majority as thin as a slice of deli cheese, 218-215. Senate Republicans are 53-47. But wait! The spending bill will need 60 votes to pass there. How much do you think Chucky Schumer will cooperate?

Then, there’s the national debt ceiling, which always strikes me as yet another needless DC confrontation performed for the crowds. Inevitably both parties act like late-night street racers right up to the deadline. And then always approve it anyway.

It's conflict. So, it gets wonderful Swamp media coverage, though, which is why it happens so regularly. We already exceeded the $36.1 trillion limit the day after Trump took office.

To avoid legal trouble, the Treasury Department can juggle balances in various accounts like some of us do on the eve of April 15. But that can only last until maybe late spring.

President Trump will have to get his hands into that legislative mess and other skirmishes as they erupt, as he did pushing cabinet nominees through confirmation so successfully. The results will surely affect his job approval.

He’s got some new clout with Congress now since he helped elect many of them. And, of course, Donald Trump is intimately familiar with that best-seller, “The Art of the Deal.” Thank goodness.