Tracking Public Opinion of Trump's Washington

Morning Consult is tracking what voters across the country think about how President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are governing the United States ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Each week, we’ll update this page with fresh and timely data on all of the major questions facing Washington, including views about the people in charge, the issues dominating the conversation and what is actually breaking through to the electorate.
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Key Takeaways
A new second-term approval low for Trump: Sentiment about Trump’s job performance has reached its worst point yet since he took office in January, with 53% of voters disapproving and 45% approving. It marks a reversal from Trump’s standing at the start of this term, when 52% approved and 45% disapproved, and leaves him worse off than he was at a similar point in 2017, when 48% approved and 45% disapproved.
Economic buzz hits worst point: Voters were 32 points more likely to hear something negative than positive about the economy last week (52% to 20%), a record low for Trump’s second term and the worst we’ve measured since January 2023. Roughly 7 in 10 voters reported hearing about market volatility as the electorate’s negative sentiment about Trump’s handling of the economy saw no week-over-week movement.
Immigration remains a relative strength: The majority of voters (52%) approve of Trump’s handling of immigration amid coverage of the Trump administration's refusal to seek the court-ordered return of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was erroneously deported to El Salvador. That figure — along with his 42% disapproval rating — is identical to what we clocked last week even as net buzz about immigration reached its worst point since Trump took office in January.
Price priority gap continues: Roughly 2 in 5 voters said the Trump administration is making energy price reduction a “top priority,” compared with 54% who said he should be doing so. The electorate’s perception of his interest in the energy prices issue is in line with how they see him approaching health care, which — along with energy and broader consumer prices — continues to see a major priority gap between what voters see and want from Trump’s Washington.
Data Downloads
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People
Trump's approval ratings
- Trump began his second term by matching a record-high 52% approval from March 2017, but voters have steadily soured on his job performance since his second inauguration.
- At a similar point in Trump’s first term, 48% of voters approved and 45% disapproved of his job performance.
Politicians' popularity
- Trump’s favorability ratings remain underwater, which has been the case more often than not since he took office.
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) face low awareness from the electorate.
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the most famous congressional leader, is also the most unpopular one, with 2 in 5 voters expressing unfavorable views. Despite pushback from the left nationally, he’s maintained good numbers at home in New York.
Policy
Voters’ priorities for the Trump administration
- Voters are most likely to want Trump to focus on lowering prices for goods and services, and specifically health care affordability, following a campaign that was dominated by voters’ concerns about inflation.
- Amid his and Elon Musk’s high-profile efforts with the Department of Government Efficiency, just 26% of voters say that a reduction in the size and scope of the U.S. government should be a “top priority,” while 42% say it is for Trump.
Trump’s performance on the issues
- The president receives his best ratings on immigration (52%) and national security (51%).
- Roughly half of voters disapprove of Trump’s economic and trade handling, making them his worst issues.
Congressional trust on the issues
- Republicans hold advantages over Democrats on trust to handle immigration, national security and the national debt.
- Voters are much more likely to trust Democrats to handle health care, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion and the major U.S. entitlement programs.
- Voters are closely divided over whom they trust to handle the economy, taxes, trade and foreign policy and energy.
News
The buzz on the politicians
- Voters are 21 points more likely to say they’ve heard something negative about Trump than positive, marking a slight improvement from last week, when he tied his worst net buzz rating we’ve measured during his second term in office.
- Few voters say they’ve heard much about Johnson or Thune as the two work with Trump to plot his legislative strategy.
- Though Republicans enjoyed a narrow buzz advantage over Democrats between the November elections and the opening months of the second Trump presidency, that hasn’t been the case since late March.
The buzz on the issues
- Voters were 32 points more likely to hear something negative than positive about the economy as the markets continued to react to Trump’s tariffs, marking a second-term low.
- As was the case throughout much of the 2024 campaign, immigration has been one of the most salient issues voters are hearing about in the news, with roughly 7 in 10 saying they'd heard something recently about it.
- Following Trump’s inauguration, Republican voters are increasingly likely to say that they’re hearing positive things about issues such as immigration, national security and public safety.
What voters are hearing about
- Roughly 3 in 5 voters (59%) said they had seen, read or heard “a lot” about the death of Pope Francis, just short of the 60% who reported having consumed the same amount of information about the year’s most salient events so far — the Los Angeles-area wildfires and the crash of a passenger airliner with a U.S. Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
- More than 2 in 5 voters (43%) said they had recently heard a lot about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the highest we’ve tested so far.
Source of this data
Methodology
Morning Consult’s latest reported results reflect data gathered April 25-27, 2025, among a nationally representative sample of 2,224 registered U.S. voters, with a margin of error of +/-2 percentage points. For more information on our methodology, see here.
About Morning Consult
Morning Consult is a global decision intelligence company changing how modern leaders make smarter, faster, better decisions. The company pairs its proprietary high-frequency data with applied artificial intelligence to better inform decisions on what people think and how they will act. Learn more at morningconsult.com.
Email [email protected] to speak with a member of the Morning Consult team.
Eli Yokley is Morning Consult’s U.S. politics analyst. Eli joined Morning Consult in 2016 from Roll Call, where he reported on House and Senate campaigns after five years of covering state-level politics in the Show Me State while studying at the University of Missouri in Columbia, including contributions to The New York Times, Politico and The Daily Beast. Follow him on Twitter @eyokley. Interested in connecting with Eli to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
Cameron Easley is Morning Consult’s head of U.S. Political Analysis. He has led Morning Consult's coverage of U.S. politics and elections since 2016, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, Axios, FiveThirtyEight and on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Cameron joined Morning Consult from Roll Call, where he was managing editor. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Follow him on Twitter @cameron_easley. Interested in connecting with Cameron to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].