Trump Approval Tracker

The September 25 book settled and the ladder rolled to October 2, and the centre dropped with it. Kalshi's eight rungs now put 38.5 to 38.7 on top at 21%, with 38.2 to 38.4 at 20% and Below 38.2 at 19% right behind—about nine-tenths below the 39.4 to 39.6 mode the September 25 book opened with. Read as a distribution, a little over half the weight now sits below 38.8.

The flow is still in the tails, but less of it. 38.2 to 38.4 is the busiest rung on $1,038 of the book's $5,268 day. Below 38.2 took $851 and Above 39.9, priced at 5%, took $763. The two extreme rungs account for 31% of the day, down from nearly two-thirds a week ago, and open interest is only 4,865 contracts—the new book is a day old.

The anchor is a Range event: eight mutually exclusive rungs from Below 38.2 to Above 39.9, settling against RealClearPolitics at noon ET on October 2.

The weekly direction contract still does not line up with it. Will Trump's approval rating increase this week? prices Above 37.7% at 41% on a $1,015 day, while the ladder puts at least 81% of its weight above 38.2. Both cannot be right at face value. The likeliest reading is the same as last week: the two settle off different series, and the gap is methodology rather than a mispricing.

These are the four rungs the spotlight row carries: the leader at 38.5 to 38.7 (21%), 38.2 to 38.4 (20%) which carries the most money, Below 38.2 (19%), and 38.8 to 39.0 (16%) on the upper shoulder. Together they hold roughly three-quarters of the book's implied weight, and the top three sit within two points of each other—a ladder that has picked a neighbourhood but not a rung.

The matching ceiling ladder—how high the rating gets before 2027—now reads nearly in order: Above 43% and Above 44% at 8%, Above 45% 6.9%, Above 46% 5.4%, then 3.2%, 3.7%, 3.3% and 1.8% up to Above 50%. The one kink is 47 against 48, half a point out of line.

It traded $68 in 24 hours against 56,663 contracts of open interest. This is a book people hold, not trade, and the last prints move only when someone tidies a position.

The cumulative floor ladder asks how low the rating gets at any point before 2027. It reads cleanly downward: Below 37% at 78%, Below 36% at 38%, Below 35% at 28%, Below 34% at 13%, Below 33% at 10%.

Below 33% took $1,218 of the ladder's $1,549 day—79% of the flow on the rung priced least likely. At 135,034 contracts of open interest the floor ladder remains by far the deepest book in the Trump approval complex, nearly thirty times the new daily ladder.

The cross-exchange read stays on the year floor. Polymarket still has no daily ladder, so the second column carries its 2026 floor board. Kalshi's Below 35% at 28% against Polymarket's hit 35% at 30%—two points apart, on books holding 135,034 and 74,183 contracts. Polymarket's 36% rung shows 0.0% on a board that traded $3 today; read it as an empty quote, not a price.

Watch whether the ladder keeps sliding. The centre fell nine-tenths in one roll. If Below 38.2 overtakes the 38.5 rung before October 2, the floor ladder's Below 37% at 78% becomes the live question rather than the tail one.

And watch the weekly direction book, which settles two hours before the ladder on the same morning and at 41% still disagrees with it.