Jul.22

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Lots of Bad Polls for Trump

Pop quiz: What are the three policies that are most central to Trump v2.0? We'll give you our answer in short order, but for now, it's a useful question to consider.

Anyhow, every day, there are reminders for Trump that it's very easy to make big promises, but it's very hard to actually govern. One problem is that it's impossible to deliver on everything you commit to, particularly if you are in the habit of making big, reckless promises. A second problem is that the things voters support in the abstract often turn out to be things they don't like in actuality.

Let's start with overall approval. The Economist/YouGov are unusual right now, in that they poll Trump's approval about once a week. Here is a rundown, in chronological order, of the seven polls they've done since the start of June:

You don't need us to tell you that a basically consistent downward march from 5 points underwater to 14 points underwater, and in just 6 weeks, is not good news for a sitting president.

Now, let's take a look at where the aggregators, which average multiple approval-rating polls, have Trump:

It would appear that the results from The Economist/YouGov are a bit on the bearish side, but only a bit. Trump is pretty clearly either double-digits underwater, or on the cusp of being so.

And now, our answer to the question we opened with. We would say that Trump's signature policies, in order, are: (1) immigration crackdowns, (2) tariffs, and (3) the BBB. Readers might quibble with our ranking, but we struggle to see how any other policy could make the top three. And, as you might guess, the President is not polling well on any of the three.

We'll start with #3, primarily because we've already talked a fair bit about that polling. As we have noted, public opinion runs just a bit shy of 2-to-1 against the bill. And the latest news on that front is that... there's no news. That is to say, public opinion doesn't seem to be moving much. The latest BBB poll was conducted by CNN/SSRS, and says that 61% of Americans disapprove of the bill, whereas 39% approve. That's not very good.

And, by the way, the CBO released its final scoring of the bill yesterday, projecting it will add $3.4 trillion in deficit spending over 10 years, which will increase the national debt by some number considerably larger than $3.4 trillion (it depends on interest rates). The CBO also says the bill will cause roughly 10 million people to lose their health insurance.

Historically, American voters do not cast their votes based on deficits and on the national debt. There is often much talk about this issue, but that talk is rarely backed with actual voting (though voters might vote based on the effects of deficits, like higher inflation). On the other hand, while the human brain is not well suited to really making sense of comic-book numbers in the tens of trillions, it's very well suited to understanding "I had health insurance, and now I don't have health insurance." So, that's the problem area for the Republicans (though the full impact of the bill may not be felt until after the midterms).

Moving on to #2, the tariffs are roughly as unpopular as the BBB. In the latest from CBS/YouGov, 60% of respondents oppose the tariffs, while 40% support them. The same poll found that 64% of respondents think Trump is not doing enough to combat inflation, while 62% think his actions have already made prices higher. The latest from Marist had nearly the same numbers, including identical 60% disapproval and 40% approval for the tariffs.

Politico/Public First also took a look at the tariffs, focusing in particular on breaking down responses by party. Of course the people who voted for Kamala Harris do not approve of the tariffs; 86% of them think they are hurting the U.S., while only 7% think they are helping. But even Trump's own voters are... soft on the tariffs, let's say. Specifically, 63% think they are helping the U.S., while 27% think they are hurting. Yes, he's still above water with Republicans. However, he's also not too far removed from dropping below 50% with his own voters on a policy that was a core part of his platform.

And finally, #1 immigration, where the numbers are the most interesting, we would say. There have been two major polls on this subject in the last week. The first of those is the CBS/YouGov poll that also covered the tariffs. On immigration, they find that 44% of respondents approve of the administration's immigration policy, whereas 56% disapprove. Just a month ago, it was an even split, 50%/50%. And in March, it was 54% approve and 46% disapprove. So, in this poll, Trump has gone from being 8 points above water to 12 points underwater since March. That's a 20-point swing in about 4 months.

The other big poll here is the newest from Gallup. Gallup asks different questions than CBS/YouGov, but their results paint a similar picture. In 2024, during the presidential campaign, 55% of respondents said that they wanted to see immigration decreased. That number is down to 30%. Since Democrats and independents tend to be pretty pro-immigrant (either they want more immigration, or they want current levels to remain steady), this change is driven mostly by Republican voters. In 2024, 88% of Republicans wanted immigration to be reduced. Now, it's 48%. That's right, a 40-point drop.

The other interesting (and very related) result from Gallup involves responses to the question: "On the whole, do you think immigration is a good thing or a bad thing for this country today?" Gallup has been asking that question since the start of this century. In 2001, 62% of respondents said it's a good thing; in 2002 that dropped to 55%, presumably due to the 9/11 attacks and the wave of xenophobia they unleashed. Since then, the total has generally crept upward, excepting fairly big dips in 2014 (63%) and 2024 (64%). This year, the number is the highest it's been since Gallup started polling this question: 79%.

What, exactly, is going on here? We would guess it's two things. First, voters were unhappy with Joe Biden and the Democrats in general, and we suspect that for many of them "What is your opinion on immigrants/immigration?" was effectively "What is your opinion on Biden/the Democrats?" Second, policies often sound great in the abstract, but become considerably less appealing once they are put into effect. We certainly hope that at least some people, once they saw what an aggressive, Stephen-Miller-and-Tom-Homan-led immigration policy looks like, decided that "secure our borders" is not all it's cracked up to be.

There was a headline on CNN last week, "Trump's angry, erratic behavior explains his lowball poll numbers." We'd actually say that's in the wrong order, and that his bad poll numbers explain his angry, erratic behavior. In any case, what it amounts to is that Democrats continue to hate him, independents are largely opposed, and there's even some slippage (albeit not a lot, as yet) among Republicans. It's not a great picture for Trump, and all of this is before the effects of the tariffs and BBB, not to mention the ongoing Epstein scandal, have had time to fully manifest. So, things can, and probably will, get worse for him. (Z)