Almost a hundred days into his second administration, the American public is turning on President Trump and his policies.
NYT (“Voters See Trump’s Use of Power as Overreaching, Times/Siena Poll Finds“):
Voters believe President Trump is overreaching with his aggressive efforts to expand executive power, and they have deep doubts about some of the signature pieces of his agenda, a New York Times/Siena College poll found.
The turbulent early months of Mr. Trump’s administration are seen as “chaotic” and “scary” by majorities of voters — even many who approve of the job he is doing. Voters do not view him as understanding the problems in their daily lives and have soured on his leadership as he approaches his 100th day in office.
Mr. Trump’s approval rating sits at 42 percent. His standing is historically low for a president this early in a term, but it is in line with his stubborn unpopularity, which did not prevent him from sweeping the battleground states in last year’s election.
Now, however, voters express dimming confidence about Mr. Trump’s handling of some of the top issues that propelled him back to the White House, including the economy and immigration, even as most Americans support deportations. Only 43 percent said they approved of how he has managed the economy this term, a serious erosion on an issue long seen as a strength.
The president’s pursuit of widespread tariffs — which has caused stock-market drops and gyrations — was opposed by 55 percent of voters, including 63 percent of independents.
Taken together, the survey’s findings show that any second-term honeymoon for Mr. Trump is over. His approval rating among crucial independent voters is now at a woeful 29 percent.
WaPo (“Trump’s immigration ratings turn negative, Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds“):
President Donald Trump’s approval ratings on immigration, relatively strong in the early weeks of his second term, have dipped into negative territory, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a sign that his administration’s hard-line and, in some cases, legally dubious enforcement tactics are losing public support.
A majority of Americans, 53 percent, disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, with 46 percent approving, a reversal from February when half of the public voiced approval of his approach. Negative views have ticked up across partisan groups over the past two months, with 90 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of independents and 11 percent of Republicans now disapproving of the way the president has managed one of his core policy issues.
That Trump is underwater is hardly a new phenomenon. He spent all but a day of his first term in that situation and has been there most of his second as well:
Further, Trump is not eligible for re-election and we’re still almost two years away from the midterms, which tend to trend away from the President’s party regardless. Still, there are troubling signs for Trump here.
As WaPo notes, immigration has been a winning issue for Trump throughout his political career. Not now.
White House aides had hoped that Trump’s actions on immigration and a dwindling number of undocumented immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border would help bolster his public standing despite declining support in other areas.
Prompted by frustrations that the pace of deportations was falling short of the president’s ambitious quotas, the administration has taken more aggressive action in recent weeks. It deported 238 migrants to a megaprison in El Salvador without the chance to challenge their designation as alien enemies beforehandand targeted international students and faculty at U.S. colleges and universities for removal.
It also resisted orders from federal judges — rulings backed by a unanimous Supreme Court decision — to facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego García from El Salvador. Abrego García, a Salvadoran migrant who lives in Maryland and entered the U.S. without authorization as a teen, was arrested by immigration officers and sent to the Salvadoran facility.
A 2019 legal order barred his removal, and the administration has acknowledged that Abrego García was wrongly deported. But federal officials say they have no authority to bring him back and have sought to portray him and others as violent gang members, despite producing no evidence.
The Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds that more Americans say Abrego García should be returned to the country than remain imprisoned in El Salvador — 42 percent versus 26 percent. About 3 in 10 Americans, however, say they “don’t know enough” to have an opinion, a sign that views on the high-profile case are still forming among a sizable segment of the population.
In this case at least, the numbers are wildly divergent based on political party; indeed Republicans and Democrats are flipped on the issue, with 82 percent of the former approving and 85 percent of the latter opposed.
We’re in a similar place on deporting international students on the basis of political speech:
The NYT/Sienna poll asked about Trump’s suggestion that even US citizens might be deported. There, even Republicans balked:
Overall, Americans seem to be leery of the potential for Presidential overreach across a wide swath of areas:
The graphic doesn’t break it down along party lines but the article gives some additional detail:
- 61 percent of voters, including 33 percent of Republicans, said a president should not be able to impose tariffs without authorization from Congress.
- 54 percent, including 26 percent of Republicans, said a president should not be able to eliminate programs enacted by Congress.
- 63 percent, including 40 percent of Republicans, said a president should not be able to deport legal immigrants who have protested Israel.
- 73 percent of voters, including 56 percent of Republicans, said a president should not be able to send American citizens to prison in El Salvador, as Mr. Trump has threatened to do.
- And as Mr. Trump’s administration has veered toward open defiance of court orders, a sky-high 76 percent of voters, and 61 percent of Republicans, said a president should not be able to ignore the Supreme Court.
One suspects the party breakdown would be a little different if Kamala Harris were in the White House. Still, there should be some comfort taken that a majority of Americans support the rule of law at least in theory and overwhelmingly oppose the most egregious violations.
Translating any of this into actual checks on Presidential misconduct, alas, is challenging. One would think a sizable number of Congressional Republicans would join their Democratic counterparts in standing up on 73-27 and 76-24 issues. Thus far, there has been no evidence to support that.
