People

• Trump's job approval rating has declined since he first took office, when 52% approved, matching the 52% high point he reached in March 2017, and 44% disapproved.
• At a similar point in Trump’s first term, 50% of voters approved and 45% disapproved of his job performance.

• Trump’s favorability ratings have ticked down since his first week in office, when 50% viewed him favorably and 47% unfavorably.
• 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, though voters are more likely to view them negatively than positively.
• In a broader sense, voters have similar views on congressional Democrats and Republicans. That’s a significant change from last Congress, when Democrats tended to be more popular among the electorate.
  

Policy

• Voters are most likely to want Trump to focus on costs for goods and services, and specifically health care affordability, following a campaign that was dominated by voters’ concerns about inflation.
• Despite his and Elon Musk’s high-profile efforts with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, voters have not become more likely to see Trump prioritizing a reduction in the size and scope of the government (47%) since he’s taken office, which just 26% of voters said should be a “top priority.”

• The bulk of voters approve of Trump’s handling of most issues at the beginning of his second term, with the president receiving his best marks on immigration (56% approve) and national security (54% approve).
• Trump faces the highest disapproval rating when it comes to his handling of abortion (47%), LGBTQ+ rights (43%)

• Republicans hold big 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 Medicare/Social Security. 
• Voters are closely divided over whom they trust to handle energy policy and taxes.

News

• Despite Trump’s pre-inaugural honeymoon, voters have generally been more likely to hear something negative than positive about him in the months since his November victory. 
• Few voters say they’ve heard much about Johnson or Thune as the two work with Trump to plot his legislative strategy. 
• News sentiment about the two parties in Congress tended to be negative in the lead-up to the inauguration, though Republicans have generally performed better by the metric.

• Following Trump’s inauguration, Republican voters are increasingly likely to say that they’re hearing positive things about issues such as the economy, immigration, national security and public safety.  
• As was the case throughout much of the 2024 campaign, immigration remains the most salient issue voters are hearing about in the news, with 7 in 10 saying they'd heard something recently about it.

• Just 17% of voters said they had seen, read or heard “a lot” about an outbreak of measles in West Texas and New Mexico, matching the share who heard the same about the Trump administration’s designation of six Mexican drug cartels and two South American gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
• The bulk of voters (65%) reported hearing at least something about Trump's firing of 17 independent inspectors general at federal government agencies and of hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees amid the ongoing DOGE cost-cutting efforts.