Top Pollster Reveals The Areas Americans Are Giving Trump Positive Marks

Forbes Breaking News

On "Forbes Newsroom," Matt Taglia, Senior Director of Emerson College Polling, discussed a new Emerson poll showing how Americans feel about President Trump's handling of the economy and immigration.

Transcript

00:00Let's dive right into those issues. And I want to start with the economy because you and I talked

00:04about polling leading up to the 2024 election and the economy was the top issue. And the election

00:10in a large part boiled down to more voters thinking that President Trump would be better

00:14at handling the economy than Vice President Kamala Harris. Do voters think that he's doing

00:19a good job when it comes to the economy? And the shorter answer to that is no. Just 37%

00:27approve of President Trump's job performance when it comes to the economy. 49% disapprove.

00:35You look a little bit further and 44% say that they are worse off now financially than they were

00:41a year ago. That includes 21% of Republicans. 49% also say that Trump is making the economy worse

00:50with his policies. Just 29% say that he's making it better. All of these taken together. It's a bit

00:59of a dismal picture for Trump. It's definitely not, I think, what a lot of his voters expected

01:04when he was coming off of the campaign trail and some of the things that he said about the economy.

01:10That is just not panning out. And we can see that reflected in this poll.

01:13What about tariffs specifically? Because economists have said tariffs are eventually

01:18going to hike up prices and shrink disposable income. And people are already nervous about

01:23the economy. President Trump in the past couple of months has threatened, started, paused and

01:28escalated global trade wars that have roiled the markets. Are voters pro-tariff?

01:34They are not. 34% approve of Trump's position on tariffs. 51% disapprove. A similar number say that

01:49tariffs are making the economy worse. We've seen this reflected in some of our earlier polls as well.

01:55By and large, voters do not believe that tariffs help the economy. I think we're seeing some pretty

02:01stark evidence of that in this poll. I think we're seeing some of that confidence in the market as

02:07well. So, you know, again, the economy, tariffs, these two things go hand in hand, especially with

02:16voters. I think they're really starting to see some of the evidence of the effects of the tariffs

02:22personally, and that's informing their answers here. What about immigration? Because that was another

02:28top issue in the 2024 election. And on day one of President Trump's second term, he signed a slew of

02:35border security and immigration executive orders. He also has had immigration be a pillar in this second

02:41term. His deportation policies have been largely controversial. What do voters think about his stance,

02:48his policies, his action on immigration so far?

02:52Yeah, and this is where you start to see a little bit of the positive news for the Trump

02:57administration. Overall, voters do approve of President Trump's handling of immigration.

03:04We see that older voters are more supportive of deportation. It flips slightly, but really voters

03:12are split. Again, older voters being more supportive of how the Trump administration has handled

03:18deportations. So, yeah, this is where the administration, the Trump presidency, is getting more positive

03:26marks in the eyes of voters. Despite some of the recent stories on deportation especially, voters are not

03:36necessarily turned off by that.

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