Trump’s honeymoon is over
New polling shows Trump’s approval declining — and a number of major warning signs appearing.
President Donald Trump came into office claiming a sweeping and historic mandate, but that was always oversold.
Trump’s win was relatively modest, historically speaking. And while his approval rating upon taking office reached a new all-time high for him — around 50 percent — his “honeymoon” phase still paled in comparison to every modern president not named Trump.
And now, after one month in office, whatever honeymoon (and mandate) Trump enjoyed appears to be slipping away.
Multiple polls this week have shown Trump’s approval rating dropping into more normal territory for him, in the mid-40s. And a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll crystallizes a number of warning signs for Trump’s agenda of drastic and legally dubious change.
Indeed, Americans seem to be quite concerned by how far Trump is going, and most of his signature policies and initiatives appear to be quite unpopular — especially those spearheaded by Elon Musk.
There’s a lot of new data, so let’s break down the big findings.
Trump’s declining approval
Trump’s approval ratings this week in a series of polls — including the Post-Ipsos poll and others from Reuters, Quinnipiac University, CNN and Gallup — has ranged from 44 to 47 percent. In all of them, more disapprove than approve of him.
That’s a reversal from the vast majority of previous polls, which showed Trump in net-positive territory.
And in the Post-Ipsos poll, significantly more Americans strongly disapprove of Trump (39 percent) than strongly approve of him (27 percent).
Most of his big policies are political losers
A big question has been whether Trump’s drastic attempts to overhaul the federal government might hurt him. And it appears that’s happening.
The Post-Ipsos poll tested about a dozen different Trump policies and efforts, ranging from mass-deportation to banning transgender people from the military to shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to pardoning Jan. 6 defendants. All but two were unpopular, by an average of 25 points.
Similarly, the CNN poll tested five different Trump initiatives and found the same thing. In each case, more said they were a “bad idea” than a “good idea,” by an average of 23 points.
Americans really don’t like his government cuts and tariffs
Those averages, of course, depend on what things you test. But some of them loom large as strikes against Trump.
A big one is the shuttering of USAID. Americans opposed it by 21 points in the Post-Ipsos poll (59-38) and 25 points in the CNN poll (53-28).
Another is Trump’s tariffs. The CNN poll shows Americans oppose his tariffs on aluminum and steel by 15 points (49-34), while the Post-Ipsos poll shows nearly 2-to-1 opposition to his 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada. About 7 in 10 Americans think tariffs generally increase the price of products in the United States.
Still another is the firings of large numbers of government workers, which was opposed by 19 points (58-39) in the Post poll.
About the only Trump proposals tested on which Americans lean in support are 10 percent tariffs on China (50-45) and mass-deportation (51-45).
But even that last one comes with a major caveat: Americans strongly oppose deporting undocumented immigrants who aren’t criminals (57-39), who arrived as children (70-26) and who have U.S. citizen children (66-30).
That accounts for a huge number of would-be deportees, and it suggests that a true mass-deportation operation could be politically problematic.
The Musk problem grows
The finding about firing government workers gets at one of the biggest emerging strikes against Trump: Elon Musk.
The writing has been on the wall that Americans are skeptical of the influence suddenly wielded by the world’s richest man, who has spearheaded those firings through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and the situation appears to have gotten worse.
The CNN poll showed Americans said nearly 2-to-1 that Musk having a prominent role in the administration was a “bad thing” (54-28). The Post-Ipsos poll showed they disapproved by a similarly wide margin (52-26) of Musk “shutting down federal government programs that he decides are unnecessary.”
And Americans said 63-34 that they were concerned about Musk’s team getting access to their data, which is currently the subject of high-profile legal fights.
Even 37 percent of Republican-leaning voters said they were at least “somewhat” concerned about Musk getting their data.
It’s become pretty clear that Americans are increasingly paying attention to Musk’s exploits, and they don’t like what they’re seeing.
Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons for violent offenders are an albatross
Perhaps no Trump action is as unpopular as one of his first ones: pardoning virtually all Jan. 6 defendants.
Previous polling has focused only broadly on the pardons, without drilling down on the most controversial among them: the pardons of violent offenders — i.e. the many convicted of assaulting police.
Well, the new Post poll tested that, and Americans oppose those pardons by a massive margin: 83-14.
Even Republican-leaning Americans oppose those pardons 70-27.
The economy looms large
A big caveat with all of these unpopular policies and efforts is how much people actually view them as impacting their lives. Perhaps people really don’t like the pardons, for instance, but what does it mean to them personally?
But the new polling does highlight perhaps the most significant emerging problem for Trump: the economy. While this has long been his strength, that no longer appears to be the case.
The Post poll shows Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy, 53-45. Those are his worst economic numbers since 2017.
The Reuters poll shows his economic approval at 39 percent, which is lower than it ever was in his first term.
It’s possible to read too much into these numbers. They could be in large part a reflection of continued economic unrest and persistent inflation, rather than anything specific related to Trump. He has only had a month in office.
But the data also suggest that Americans see Trump as misplacing his priorities.
The CNN poll shows 62 percent say Trump hasn’t gone far enough in trying to reduce the price of everyday goods. Perhaps most strikingly, even a majority of Republican-leaning voters (51 percent) say this.
The Reuters poll shows just 32 percent approve of his handling of inflation — lower than his handling of the economy.
You begin to see the potential narrative forming. To the extent economic concerns continue and inflation doesn’t disappear as fast as Trump repeatedly promised it would, Americans could see Trump as focusing on a whole bunch of things they don’t like while neglecting what’s important to them.
Trump isn’t that unpopular yet, historically speaking. It’s normal to be in the mid-40s these days.
But he’s giving people plenty of reasons to dislike what he’s doing. And he’s damaging his claims to a mandate in the process.