Welcome to our latest poll results! A majority of Americans believe that democracy is facing serious challenges. Stay informed by checking out our latest findings on this critical issue.

KURO

Transcript

00:00Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

00:05RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege,

00:11but a right. Learn more at rwjf.org.

00:15Hi, my name is Jackson. I'm currently sitting in a hotel in Japan, catching up on American

00:22politics via the NPR Politics Podcast while I get ready to head to the bullet train from

00:27Tokyo to Kyoto. This podcast was recorded at 1.21 p.m. on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025.

00:34Sounds pretty cool. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll be still

00:38trying to see the world to the extent that I can. All right, here's the show.

00:45Sounds like he's undercover. I hear those trains are so fast that you can't even get in an entire

00:52episode of the Politics Podcast. I was going to say, hey, is he listening to it on 2x speed?

00:56Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shiveram. I cover the White House.

01:00I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

01:03And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent.

01:06And today on the show, Americans are still worried about the state of democracy. That's

01:10according to the latest NPR PBS News Marist poll out this week. So Domenico, I want to start there.

01:16What does this poll say about how Americans feel about a very American thing?

01:21Yeah, well, three quarters of people say that democracy, they believe, is under serious threat.

01:26That included almost 9 in 10 Democrats, 80 percent of independents, and a majority of Republicans.

01:32Three quarters also described politically motivated violence in this country as a major problem.

01:38So we're seeing a lot of people really feel like on this Fourth of July week that they don't

01:43have a lot of confidence in the direction of the country or, frankly, their political leadership.

01:48Just to put this into context, how do the numbers that you're looking at compare with

01:51previous polls that have been done? Are people getting more worried? Is it the same? What's

01:55this? Well, it's similar to what we found in April of this year, but it's different from

01:592023 when 87 percent said that they felt that there was a serious threat to democracy. So

02:05what's the difference there? Is that that people think things are getting better? Not really.

02:09It's Republicans. When Democrat Joe Biden was president, 88 percent of Republicans said that

02:15there was a serious threat. In this survey, it was 57 percent. There wasn't much change among

02:19Democrats and independents. So we're seeing very different realities for what people in each party

02:26really see as the actual threat to democracy. No doubt Democrats see Trump and right-wing extremism

02:31as that threat. For Republicans, it's different.

02:34Does that mean these questions are really a proxy for party ID?

02:37It's kind of like how when your own party's president is in office, you think the economy

02:43is pretty good, but if it's the other guy, you don't?

02:45To some extent, yes. But among Democrats, that wasn't the case. I think it's for Republicans

02:49mostly because in 2023, Democrats were about 87 percent saying that there was a serious threat

02:54to democracy. Now that's 89 percent. Not much different. For independents, it was 88 percent.

03:00Now it's 80. Slight decline, but really not much outside the margin of error. Republicans being

03:0531 points different. I think that shows you that they really feel good about where things

03:09are right now with Donald Trump for the most part.

03:12So democracy for Republicans is doing better under a Republican president in a way.

03:17Yeah. And I think we've seen that with a lot of different issues like Mara alludes to on the

03:20economy, for example, when one party sees it differently than the other. There's also other

03:25things that might be some overlap in Venn diagram, which we didn't ask about. But in interviews with

03:30people, we know that some people are very concerned. Many people are very concerned about polarization in

03:35the country, partisanship, civility, the way we talk to each other. And that does feel different

03:40than it did some 15 years ago.

03:42But so does that mean that voters define democracy as partisan? In other words, the democracy is doing

03:48better when my guy's in office?

03:50I think there's a broad range of what people define democracy as. And I think it's really a

03:55temperature check for the health of the country.

03:57Yeah. Something you mentioned earlier is political leadership. What did the poll say about how people

04:02feel about those in power?

04:04Yeah, they have very little confidence in their political leadership. You know, President Trump

04:07has just a 43 percent approval rating. Republicans in Congress are just at 35 percent, which is

04:12actually the highest in the time that Maris has been asking this question back to 2011. Democrats are

04:18just at 27 percent. And, you know, Democrats are the reason that the party is so low. Only 44 percent of

04:25Democrats approve of the job the Democrats are doing in Congress is a 30 point difference from

04:31how Republicans feel about Republicans. And I think this exposes a rift that we've seen in the party

04:36where we have younger progressives who don't really like how they've seen their party or the party that

04:42they lean most toward fight against Trump. And I think that that was highlighted, you know, in this

04:48past week with this mayoral election in New York, we had a primary on the Democratic side where a young

04:55progressive who declares himself as a Democratic socialist, Zoran Mamdani, won. So if he wins in

05:03that kind of race and you had a lot of young voters going in his direction, it really does show this

05:08divide of younger voters who should be voting Democratic but are saying that they don't feel like

05:15they have somebody who expresses a vision for the future as boldly as they want to see it. But

05:20older Democrats see his vision of a Democratic socialist America as not one that can win

05:28nationally. And I think that's a rift that could play out and will probably continue to play out.

05:32Yeah. Well, Mara, I mean, we were talking yesterday on the pod about, you know, this this big bill of

05:37Trump's that got passed through the Senate. And Democrats obviously have a lot to go through in 2027,

05:43but some of the stuff is playing out more immediately than that with how Democrats feel

05:49about Democrats in office. That's right. I think what's so interesting to me about polling is how

05:54disconnected some people's opinions are about the economy, about different bills in Congress from

06:02their approval of the president or Congress. For instance, I wanted to ask Domenico right now,

06:09Donald Trump has a 43% approval rating. In the past, we would have said that's pretty bad. But

06:15since it's so static, he's been there for the almost the whole time. Is that correct?

06:19Yeah. And I think that the polarization that we're seeing in the country just over the last 20 years

06:23or so lends itself to the fact that presidents just generally haven't been above 50%.

06:29One other thought I wanted to bring up with both of you, as people in this poll are saying that,

06:34you know, they disapprove of their parties in Congress or our Democrats are disapproving of

06:38Democrats, they disapprove of their political leaders. At the same time, you know, incumbent

06:42politicians don't often get voted out. How do you explain that disconnect?

06:47You know, the funnel has sort of gotten tighter in this country for where these, you know,

06:52competitive seats and races are. We've seen a shrinking number of competitive seats

06:57over the long term, you know, some decades where both parties have been able to really redistrict

07:03and make compromise something that's not really incentivized. Because if you have a district that's

07:10really all one party, then that party wants to see you fight for those priorities, then you're

07:15seeing fewer and fewer people likely to wind up losing because there aren't many people who are

07:22crossover voters to vote you out. So that's one thing. But I think there's also a lot of people

07:26who just don't feel at home in either party, but don't have any other choice. They're not approving

07:31of either party, for the most part, but they've got to vote for someone or they stay home on the

07:37couch. And we're seeing that a third to 40% of people even in presidential elections do make that

07:41choice, even though they're eligible to vote. They stay home.

07:44All right. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment.

07:50And we're back. Domenico, I want to ask about something that was key to Donald Trump's

08:10presidential campaign. And that, of course, is immigration policy. A majority of people in this

08:14poll say they are displeased with what the administration has been doing.

08:18Yeah. And Trump's immigration approval mirrors his overall approval rating, which is 43% approved,

08:2352% disapproved. So 43% of people say that Trump's deportation policies also have made the country

08:29safer. 54% of majority think that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, has gone too far in

08:36enforcing immigration laws. Broadly speaking, a significant majority, 64%, say America's openness

08:42to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation. That included 85% of

08:47Democrats, 68% of independents. But on the flip side of this, 62% of Republicans agreed that if

08:54America is too open, it risks losing its identity as a nation. This has been a really fundamental divide.

09:01We saw that split also when it came to who people think should stay and who should go. There's broad

09:07consensus on deporting those convicted of violent crimes. And in the country without permanent legal

09:12status, 80% of people think that they should be deported. 58% also say to deport those who are

09:18convicted of nonviolent crimes. But it gets trickier here for Trump the further down you go, especially

09:23when it comes to students who've overstayed their visas. There's a real split in the country on that.

09:28And for industry workers, people in food and agricultural industries, 55% said that they

09:33oppose their deportations. So actual views of immigration policy, much more nuanced than the

09:39politics certainly allows. And you could see Trump following those shifting feelings on immigration,

09:45almost like he was a metronome. I mean, you know, he said, oh, we're not going to deport people who

09:51work in agriculture or hotels. And, you know, he went back and forth on that. This is a complicated

09:56issue. We saw in Trump's first term, support for immigration in general went up over the course

10:02of his first term. And it might do the same in the second. Yeah. And he said this weekend that he

10:05wants to see a, quote, temporary pass for farmers and hotel owners. But we haven't seen that trickle

10:12down to the Department of Homeland Security, which says that these immigration raids at workplaces are,

10:17quote, cornerstone to their deportation policies.

10:19Another message that Trump ran on, especially in 2024, was an economic message, right? All the talk

10:26about the price of eggs and all these other things. But in this poll, he's pretty underwater on the

10:31economy, too.

10:32Yeah, it's really striking. It's the worst rating of any of the three things that we'd asked about

10:36when it came to immigration. Foreign policy was 41%. Economics, the economy. He was at 39% economic

10:44approval, including six in 10 independents who said that they disapproved of the job that he was doing

10:50on the economy. That's a real inversion of his first term. I went and looked back at Marist's

10:54polling through the Trump first term and their range on Trump's handling of economics. His approval

11:01ranged from 45% to 53%. It was never this low.

11:05No, and we're still in the midst of this grand experiment. Will a weak dollar and high tariffs

11:11bring back the golden age of the American economy, as Trump says it will? Or will the vast majority

11:17of economists be right and say that this could lead to a fiscal crisis and inflation?

11:23Mara, I want to take a quick step back here, too, because even if Trump is unpopular with,

11:27you know, these issues, and even if his policies are unpopular, he's in a position where he doesn't

11:32have to run for re-election. And Republicans in Congress are largely supportive of his plans. But

11:38is this dissatisfaction with Trump, you know, potentially a warning for Republicans heading

11:43into next year's midterms?

11:44Well, there's certainly a lot of Republicans who think it is. When you say he doesn't have to run

11:49for re-election, the Constitution actually prohibits him from running for re-election. He can't serve

11:55a third term, whether it's consecutive or non-consecutive. But yes, the big question is,

12:01is Trump a kind of unique figure? Is the strong feelings that the Republican base have about Trump,

12:08are those transferable to other candidates who are going to run in the midterms, to candidates

12:13who want to succeed him in 2028? We don't know that. What I thought was really interesting,

12:18and I wanted to ask Domenico, you know, his overall approval rating is 43%. That's very static.

12:23He's been there for a while. But 43% of people also strongly disapprove of the job he's doing. Now,

12:30I can't remember a strong disapproved number that high of a president.

12:34Well, we did start to see that creep up during the Biden presidency, where it was in the 40s of

12:39strongly disapprove. But the intensity of opposition to Trump certainly means that he has a high floor

12:45and a low ceiling. In other words, he's not going to go much higher than where he is. He has a very

12:51small range of being able to get that approval rating up. And I think that's part of why you see

12:56him cater to his base as much as he does, because he has such a locked in group of people.

13:01You know, 85% of the people who voted for Trump in 2020, voted for him in 2024,

13:07according to the Pew Research Center and their validated voter study that they did.

13:11So he has this real locked in base of people, and he can't afford to lose them.

13:15All right, we're going to leave it there for today. I'm Deepa Shiveram. I cover the White House.

13:19I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

13:22And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent.

13:25And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

13:31See, every time they let me be on with Domenico, I think it's a red-letter day.

13:38Mara, I love how you say your name. When you say your name, it sounds like wind chimes.

13:42Oh, so nice. I have a really funny story to tell you, but I'll do it all here.

13:48Okay, sounds good.

13:49Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

13:54RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege,

13:59but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org.

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