President-elect Donald Trump holds a news conference at the Mar-a-Lago Club on January 7 in Palm Beach, Florida.
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As Donald Trump prepares to return to office as president, a new NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll believes that, despite his claims of a “powerful and unprecedented mandate,” Trump may need to be careful about how far he decides to go with what he wants to do.
More people have an unfavorable than favorable opinion of him, most are against pardoning those convicted of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and they are divided on whether to mass deport the immigrants who are in the United States without legal status.
Perhaps more importantly, Americans largely expect their personal finances to improve under Trump, but many believe the tariffs will hurt the economy rather than help it. .
Trump has promised bold action, but, as the NPR poll shows, the politics could be tricky. Presidents often become vulnerable because of excessive willpower. They tend to believe – wrongly – that because they were elected, they have a mandate for whatever is on their agenda. Obviously, this is not the case.
“The first round of the second term is not going well with the public,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the survey of 1,387 adults. “Americans remain unconvinced about the pillars of Trump’s agenda, including pardons and tariffs. Mass deportations receive only mixed reviews.”
The main reason Trump got another term was his negative feelings about the economy. Voters said throughout the campaign that their main concern was inflation, particularly prices. But lowering prices, Trump said after the election, would likely “hard” despite his promises to fix the economy.
President Biden and his campaign successor, Vice President Harris, have suffered politically from inflation, and the poll paints a bleak view of Biden’s presidency. Just 42% approve of the job he is doing in this final survey of his presidency, and a slim majority said that as president he would be below average or worse.
It’s also a warning sign for Trump that the economy can make or break a presidency, and ahead of his second inauguration he gained more attention for his plans on Greenland, potentially annexing Canada, reclaiming the Panama Canal Zone and renaming the Panama Canal Zone. Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”, rather than serious projects for the economy.
The survey was conducted January 7-9 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points, so results could be around 3 points lower or higher. The survey used multiple approaches to reach respondents, including cell phone, landline, SMS and online, in English and Spanish.
Views of Trump remain more negative than positive
For most presidents, there is nothing better than their beginnings in office when it comes to how Americans perceive them.
But Trump starts with a net negative favorable rating, 44% favorable, 49% unfavorable. Since Marist began asking about Trump’s favorability in 2016, it has never had a positive net rating, but there appears to be a small percentage of withholding judgment so far, as the 49% d The unfavorable opinions are tied for the least negative rating for him. .
There is a stark gender divide in how Trump is perceived: 53% of men have a positive view of him, compared to just 35% of women.
Trump was better viewed by white evangelical Christians (69%), white men without a college degree (65%), and those who live in rural areas (57%).
Those with the least positive feelings toward the new president are white women with college degrees (29%), women who live in small towns or suburbs (34%), and people living in large cities (36%).
Only 41% of Latinos had a positive view of Trump. The sample size in the poll means there is a high margin of error with subgroups like this, but it’s an important number to watch in multiple surveys, given the record share of Latinos that Trump won in the 2024 election.
It also raises the stakes for Trump and Republicans about how important it will be to improve sentiment about the economy in the years to come.
Some Trump priorities receive mixed support at best
From pardons to those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, to mass expulsions of migrants, to tariffs on other countries, Americans are either not agreement with Trump, or are divided on whether these ideas are good.
Regarding January 6, days after the fourth anniversary of the siege, 59% said it was an insurrection aimed at overturning free and fair elections, as opposed to a protest by patriots to end to stolen elections. Among Republicans, on the other hand, 61% think it is a protest by patriots.
A significant majority – 62% – said they would not approve of Trump pardoning those convicted of attacking the Capitol on January 6. Vice President-elect JD Vance said Sunday that people who “committed violence” should not be pardoned; Trump has been less clear about how he might distinguish between “peaceful protesters” and those who acted violently that day. (See NPR’s database of those who have been charged here.)
Trump received higher marks than Harris or Biden on the question of who people trusted more on immigration before the election, but when asked specifically about the mass illegal deportation of immigrants to the United States, opinions were mixed: 49% supported it, 49% opposed it.
But showing why this has been such an important issue for Trump’s campaign, not only did nearly 8 in 10 Republicans support mass deportations, but 53 percent of Republicans strongly support him.
Only a quarter of Democrats support the proposal, and independents are evenly split.
On the economy, nearly 6 in 10 people said they think the economy is not working well for them personally, including 73% of Republicans. Before the pandemic, two-thirds of those surveyed thought the economy was working well for them.
Feelings of nostalgia for the pre-pandemic economy could be a big factor in Trump’s victory in November and why 44% of respondents in that survey said they expect their family’s finances to improve in the coming year, compared to just 22% who said they think so. will get worse.
This 44% is the most optimistic respondents have about their personal financial situation in the near future since Marist has asked the question in the past 15 years.
Republicans (63%) are most likely to be confident their financial situation will improve, which is not surprising given how partisan views on the economy are.
But when it comes to tariffs or fees on products imported from other countries, something Trump has promoted as being able to solve many economic problems, respondents, by a margin of 48 to 31 percent, were more likely to say that tariffs would hurt the economy rather than help it. .
Trump’s candidates are largely unknown
There are a series of confirmation hearings this week for several Trump Cabinet nominees, including Pete Hegseth, a Fox News personality whom Trump nominated to be secretary of defense. Hegseth sat for his one and only day of interrogation on Tuesday.
More than half of people (55%) said they had no opinion or were unsure of their views on him. Only 19% have a favorable opinion, while 26% have an unfavorable opinion.
Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Kennedy, had a net positive rating, 40 to 37 percent, with 23 percent unsure. He actually had the highest net rating — and the only one that was positive among those surveyed, including Trump, Hegseth, senator candidate for secretary of state Marco Rubio and adviser Elon Musk.
Rubio, who has had a checkered history with Trump but has gained his good graces in recent years, was positive at 25%, and negative at 34%.
Musk is the world’s richest man and has donated more than $250 million to Trump’s re-election efforts. He is responsible for an external advisory effort to identify government waste. Only 37% have a favorable opinion of the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who also owns the social media platform X. 46% have a negative opinion of him.
Biden’s legacy viewed negatively
In addition to his average final approval rating of 42% approval, 50% disapproval, Biden was also seen by 53% as likely to be ranked either below average (19%) or as the one of the worst presidents (34%).
Only 19% said it would be above average or among the best. More than a quarter said it would be considered average. Even among Democrats, only 44% said he would be remembered as at least above average.
Combining average or better, 47% said Biden would be considered at least average. That’s more than Trump when he first left office in January 2021, when only 37% said so.
But both of those numbers are far lower than those of former President Barack Obama, where more than two-thirds (68%) said he would be remembered as at least average and 40% said he would be considered at least above average.
