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Updated on Feb 10, 2025
Updates weekly

Tracking Public Opinion of Trump's Washington

Voters continue to sour on the president and his work in office

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

  • Trump’s popularity slips: Three weeks into his presidency, voters are only slightly more likely to approve than disapprove of Trump’s job performance, 49% to 48%. He’s slightly worse off than he was at this point in his first term, when 49% of voters also approved but only 45% disapproved. The president’s net favorability rating is also back in the red: Voters are 3 percentage points more likely to have an unfavorable than favorable view of Trump. Those are his worst numbers since November, and also worse than they were at this time eight years ago.

  • Millennials fuel declines: Trump’s disapproval and unfavorable ratings have increased from 44% to 48% and from 47% to 50%, respectively, since he took office in January. In both cases, this movement was driven largely by millennials, who have become 11 points more likely (36% to 47%) to disapprove of his job performance, and 7 points more likely to view him unfavorably over that time frame. 

  • Voters are turning on Trump’s economic approach: More voters than not still approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, trade and taxes, but his net approval rating on each of those three issues has fallen by 9 points since he took office. In a similar vein, Republicans in Congress remain more trusted by voters than Democrats on these issues, but those advantages have also slipped a bit in recent weeks.

  • Trade salience increases: On the issue front, it’s clear that trade is weighing heavier on voters’ minds: 67% said they’d heard something about the topic over the past week, a share only surpassed by immigration.

  • Rising egg prices are breaking through: Almost half of voters (47%) said they had seen, read or heard “a lot” about a spike in egg prices as farmers deal with a bird flu outbreak, more than the roughly 2 in 5 who heard the same about Trump’s pledge to “take over” Gaza or the president’s proposed tariffs on imports from China, Canada and Mexico.

Data Downloads

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People

Trump's approval ratings

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Latest survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters. Figures may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

  • 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.
  • While voters are slightly more likely to approve (49%) than disapprove (48%) of his job performance, his numbers are worse than they were at this point eight years ago, when 49% of voters approved and 45% disapproved.

Politicians' popularity

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Latest survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters. Net favorability is the share of voters with favorable views minus the share with unfavorable views.

  • Trump’s favorability ratings have also slumped since his first week in office, when 50% said they viewed him favorably compared with 47% who said they viewed him 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.

Policy

Voters’ priorities for the Trump administration

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Latest survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters.

  • 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.
  • Only 19% of voters said the Trump administration should make imposing tariffs on goods imported to the United States a “top priority,” down from 23% at the beginning of his term following news of his actions on Mexico, Canada and China.

Trump’s performance on the issues

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Latest survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters.

  • 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 (53% approval) and national security (51% approval).
  • Trump faces the highest disapproval rating when it comes to his handling of abortion (47% disapprove) and LGBTQ+ rights (43% disapprove).

Congressional trust on the issues

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Latest survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters. Trust gap is the share of voters who trust congressional Republicans minus the share who trust congressional Democrats.

  • Republicans hold big advantages over Democrats on trust to handle immigration, national security, trade and the economy. 
  • 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.

News

The buzz on the politicians

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Latest survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters. Net buzz is the share of voters who heard something positive minus the share who heard something negative.

  • 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.

The buzz on the issues

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Latest survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters. Net buzz is the share of voters who heard something positive minus the share who heard something negative.

  • 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 roughly 4 in 5 saying they'd heard something recently about it.

What voters are hearing about

Shares of voters who have seen, read or heard the following about …
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Survey conducted Feb. 7-9, 2025, among registered U.S. voters. Figures may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

  • 47% of voters said they’d seen, read or heard “a lot” recently about the rise of egg prices as farmers deal with a bird flu outbreak, more than the roughly 2 in 5 who heard the same about Trump imposing 10% tariffs on Chinese goods, saying the United States “will take over” Gaza and Palestinians should leave or delaying 25% tariffs he imposed on imports from Canada and Mexico.
  • The Trump administration putting all staff at the United States Agency for International Development on administrative leave broke through in a big way to 35% of voters, similar to the 32% who heard the same about his threat to fire federal employees who don’t return to the office in last week’s survey.

Source of this data

Methodology

Morning Consult’s latest reported results reflect data gathered Feb. 7-9, 2025, among a nationally representative sample of roughly 2,230 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
U.S. Politics Analyst

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
Head of U.S. Political Analysis

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].