Tracking Public Opinion of Trump's Washington
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 approval rating reaches a new low: Trump’s approval rating has slumped to 45%, the lowest point of his second term so far as Americans react to his trade policies, while 52% disapprove, tying last week’s record-high rating since he took office in January. His personal popularity has also slumped to a second-term low, with voters 10 points more likely to view him unfavorably than favorably.
Democrats regain economic advantage: For the first time since May 2021, more voters trust Democrats in Congress than their Republican counterparts to handle the economy (46% to 43%). That 3-percentage-point edge for Democrats — their largest since April 2021 — underlines a stark unraveling for the GOP, which had come off the 2024 election with a double-digit advantage on the matter.
Trade buzz reaches its worst point yet: Voters were 28 points more likely to report hearing something negative than positive about trade, marking a record low in surveys conducted since November. Roughly half of voters (49%) said they had seen, read or heard “a lot” about Trump’s 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, 10 points higher than the share who said the same of his 90-day pause on so-called reciprocal tariffs for most countries.
Democrats have become more popular: For the first time since just before the 2024 election, the average voter is more likely to hold positive than negative views about Democrats in Congress (47% to 46%). It leaves them more popular than Republicans in Congress, whose favorability ratings are now 10 points underwater.
Data Downloads
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People
Trump's approval ratings
- 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, 48% of voters approved and 45% disapproved of his job performance.
Politicians' popularity
- 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 famous congressional leader, is also the most unpopular one, with 2 in 5 voters expressing unfavorable views. Despite pushback from the left nationally, he’s maintained good numbers at home in New York.
Policy
Voters’ priorities for the Trump administration
- 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.
- Amid his and Elon Musk’s high-profile efforts with the Department of Government Efficiency, just 29% of voters say that a reduction in the size and scope of the U.S. government should be a “top priority,” while 49% said it is for Trump, a record low.
Trump’s performance on the issues
- The president receives his best ratings on immigration (52%) and national security (50%).
- Nearly half of voters disapprove of Trump’s economic and trade handling, similar to their views on abortion and Medicare and Social Security.
Congressional trust on the issues
- Republicans hold advantages over Democrats on trust to handle the immigration, national security.
- Voters are much more likely to trust Democrats to handle health care, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion and Medicare and Social Security.
- Voters are closely divided over whom they trust to handle the economy, taxes, trade and energy.
News
The buzz on the politicians
- 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 (though that might be changing).
The buzz on the issues
- Voters were 27 points more likely to hear something negative than positive about the economy as the markets continued to react to Trump’s tariffs, marking a slight improvement from a record low.
- Following Trump’s inauguration, Republican voters are increasingly likely to say that they’re hearing positive things about issues such as the immigration, national security and public safety.
- 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.
What voters are hearing about
- Half of voters (49%) said they had seen, read or heard “a lot” about Trump’s raising of tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%, similar to the level of awareness of his March announcement of 25% tariffs on most goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico and Canada.
- Roughly a third of voters said they’d heard nothing at all about U.S. inflation cooling in March or the American economy adding 228,000 jobs.
Source of this data
Methodology
Morning Consult’s latest reported results reflect data gathered April 11-13, 2025, among a nationally representative sample of 2,203 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 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 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].
