Americans, including some Republicans, are losing faith in Donald Trump across a range of key issues, according to polling released this week. One survey found a majority describing the president’s second stint in the White House so far as “scary”.
Along with poor ratings on the economy and Trump’s immigration policy, a survey released on Saturday found that only 24% of Americans believe Trump has focussed on the right priorities as president.
That poll comes as Trump’s popularity is historically low for a leader this early in a term. More than half of voters disapprove of Trump’s performance as president, and majorities oppose his tariff policies and slashing of the federal workforce.
The scathing reviews come as Trump next week marks 100 days of his second stint office, and suggest Americans are already experiencing fatigue after a period that has seen global financial market nosedives and chilling deportations, including of documented people.
A poll by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research published this weekend, found that even Republicans are not overwhelmingly convinced that Trump’s attention has been in the right place.
A narrow majority, 54%, of Republicans surveyed said that Trump is focussed on the “right priorities”, while the president’s numbers with crucial independent voters are much weaker. Just 9% of independents said that the president is focussed on the right priorities – with 42% believing Trump is paying attention to the wrong issues.
About four in 10 people in the survey, 39%, approve of how Trump is handling the presidency overall, and only about 40% of Americans approve of Trump’s approach to foreign policy, trade negotiations and the economy.
Meanwhile, a New York Times/Siena College poll of registered voters on Friday found that Trump’s approval rating is 42%, and just 29% among independent voters. More than half of voters said Trump is “exceeding the powers available to him”, and 59% of respondents said the president’s second term has been “scary”.
While Republican leaders typically receive strong scores on economic issues, Americans have been underwhelmed by Trump’s performance. The Times survey found that only 43% of voters approve of how Trump is handling the economy – a stark turnaround from a Times poll in April 2024, which found that 64% approved of Trump’s economy in his first term.
Half of voters disapproved of Trump’s trade policies with other countries, and 61% said a president should not have the authority to impose tariffs without congressional approval, while the Times reported that 63% – including 40% of Republicans – said “a president should not be able to deport legal immigrants who have protested Israel”.
Further on immigration, a Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll on Friday found that 53% of Americans now disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration matters, while 46% approve. In February the majority was the other way, with half of those surveyed approving of Trump’s approach on that issue.
The Post reported that as support has drained away on this topic, at this point 90% of Democrats, 56% of independents and 11% of Republicans dislike the way Trump is dealing with immigration.
The poor reviews have dogged Trump all week. An Associated Press poll on Thursday found that about half of US adults say that Trump’s trade policies will increase prices “a lot” and another three in 10 think prices could go up “somewhat”, and half of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the possibility of the US economy going into a recession in the next few months.
Polling conducted by the Trump-friendly Fox News has brought little respite. A survey published on Wednesday found that just 38% of Americans approve of Trump on the economy, with 56% disapproving.
The Fox News poll found that 58% of respondents disapproved of Trump’s performance, and 59% disapproved on inflation. Just three in 10 Americans said they believed Trump’s policies were helping the economy, and only four in 10 said Trump’s policies will help the country.
Among generation Z, generally regarded as those born between 1995 and 2012, a staggering 69% told pollsters for an NBC Stay Tuned survey that they don’t approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and the cost of living. Gen Z participants complained of struggling to even pay the rent in some places, let alone buy a home, and they worry about inflation.
A minority of gen Z people polled thought the country would be stronger if more people lived by traditional binary gender roles and more than 90% of those polled said they believed foreign students with visas or green cards should have the same due process protections as US citizens. This comes amid the Trump administration declaring there are only two genders, male and female, and arresting and detaining some pro-Palestinian student activists without due process.
