People

• 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, 42% of voters approved and 50% disapproved of his job performance, marking one of the few weeks this year in which we find his net approval rating higher than it was at the same time in 2017.

• 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 high-profile congressional leader, is also the most unpopular one, though he’s maintained good numbers at home in New York.

Policy

• 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.
• As billionaire Elon Musk steps back from his leading role over the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, just 28% of voters say that a reduction in the size and scope of the U.S. government should be a “top priority” for the administration, compared with 42% who say they think it is a top priority for Trump, tying a record low.

• The president receives his best ratings on immigration (51%) and national security (50%).
• Despite being his best issue, the gap between the shares who approve and disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration shrunk between late February and early May.

• Republicans hold advantages over Democrats on trust to handle immigration and national security.
• Voters are more likely to trust Democrats to handle health care, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, energy and the major U.S. entitlement programs.
• Voters are closely divided over whom they trust to handle the economy, taxes, trade, the national debt and foreign policy.

News

• Voters are 20 points more likely to say they’ve heard something negative about Trump than positive, consistent with our findings throughout April and early May.
• 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.

• Voters were 24 points more likely to hear something negative than positive about the economy, marking an 8-point improvement over the past two weeks as Trump touts a new trade deal with the United Kingdom and works to project an easing of tensions with China.
• 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.

• Two in 3 voters said they heard at least something about saying he plans to reopen Alcatraz Island as a federal prison, just short of the 74% who heard the same about the election of the Catholic Church's new Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost of Chicago.
• Just over half of voters (52%) said they’d heard at least something about congressional Republicans' efforts to advance Trump's tax, immigration and energy agenda, marking a low point in several weeks of tracking since Trump took office despite weeks of legislative wrangling in Washington.