Standing in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday, President Donald Trump captured the excited vibes of Republicans — and the American right-wing at large — as he promised a long list of crackdowns and policy changes.
“My recent election is a mandate to completely and utterly reverse an appalling betrayal,” Trump said.
As he takes office, it may feel that Trump’s movement has cultural and political The upper hand Republicans won the popular vote in both presidential and congressional races. Trump’s popularity has never been higher. Broligarchs, celebrities and big businessmen lined up behind him.
But another way to look at it is that Trump’s popularity is probably on his side the peak — and Modern presidents tend to start their terms with high support Before people become disillusioned. Ultimately he did not win the election. Republicans control Congress by only a small majority. And his most high-profile The policy proposals are not as popular as he claims.
Most of the American public is not rejecting what Trump is offering (at least, not yet). Trump’s positions on at least three different issues are remarkably popular. But there is a difference between what the public supports and what Trump claims.
Where Americans support Trump
Earlier this month, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Marist Collegeand public opinion and market research firms Ipsos (in partnership with The New York Times) Polls are conducted to gauge Americans’ feelings about a range of actions or positions Trump has proposed.
The results are clear, if not helpful in giving Trump a mandate: Americans are evenly divided on most issues. But they support Trump on at least three fronts: pursuing an isolationist foreign policy, making less concessions to transgender people, and pursuing a restrictive immigration policy.
For example: Six in 10 Americans think “we should pay less attention to problems abroad and focus on problems here at home,” according to an Ipsos poll. And majorities think the federal government is spending too much on aid to both Israel (53 percent) and Ukraine (51 percent).
Opinion in both countries has been reversed since early 2024, when Ipsos polls found a narrow majority. Support continued military aid to both
Majorities also favor Trump on gender identity and trans rights. The highly politicized issue of transgender female athletes competing in women’s sports, for example, isn’t necessarily a top-of-mind concern for many Americans, but nearly 80 percent in an Ipsos poll think it shouldn’t be allowed.
And, nearly seven in 10 Americans say doctors should not be allowed to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs or hormone therapy to anyone under 18, including nearly all Republican respondents and most Democrats.
Opinions about immigration policy are a different beast
Public polls over the past two years have painted a much more mixed picture of Trump’s immigration and border enforcement plans.
They show an overall sense of distaste for the status quo: Americans angry about the influx of legal and illegal immigrants during a Biden presidency, fearful about the security situation at the southern border and willing to turn away from the welcome. Immigration procedures
But when asked more specific questions, Americans became more critical. D AP-NORC Poll And the Ipsos poll both shows that the vast majority of respondents support some form of legal immigration, meaning the public believes there is value in welcoming outsiders. About 30 percent of respondents, primarily Republicans, think the U.S. should reduce legal immigration “a lot” or “a little,” while 24 percent think the government should increase legal immigration. The breakdown reflects some of the tension within the Trump coalition, as some business figures like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy argued with anti-immigration Trump acolytes in late December.
When it comes to illegal immigration, opinions are also nuanced. About 55 percent of Americans in the Ipsos poll support “deporting all immigrants who are here illegally,” including a third of Democrats. A plurality — 43 percent — in the AP-NORC poll said the same That support rises significantly when specifically recommending deportation of those with criminal records or those who crossed the southern border during the post-pandemic surge: 87 percent support the former, while 63 percent support the latter in the Ipsos poll.
And yet that support changes when you ask about exceptions: 63 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat support protecting DACA recipients — immigrants who were children when they entered the United States illegally.
This complexity doesn’t come across in the way Trump and his supporters talk about mass deportations and raids. They speak, and will likely act, as if there is overwhelming support for removing every undocumented immigrant. But what happened? Pretty constant Americans have warmed to the idea of mass deportation over the past few years in theory Seeing them actually play, however, will probably change this opinion.
Which the public doesn’t seem to want
And then there’s the stuff the American public isn’t really excited about: tariffs, prosecuting political opponents, January 6, 2021, pardoning rioters and trying to get rid of birthright citizenship.
The Ipsos poll captures some relevance to the executive order Trump is signing that seeks to repeal the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship — anyone born American on US soil — to the children of undocumented immigrants. A solid 55 percent of the country rejects it.
There is also an order against Trump’s Plan for Political Retribution: Nearly three-quarters of Americans reject the idea that Trump should use the government to investigate his political opponents, while a separate AP-NORC poll showed that only two in 10 Americans support his proposed pardon. Did the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Six in 10 oppose the pardon.
And finally, Americans aren’t excited about the broad or targeted tariffs that Trump has said he wants to enact. AP-NORC polling shows that nearly half of US adults “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose new tariffs on all foreign goods. A slight majority opposes further scaled back tariffs that specifically target China and Mexico Ipsos survey.
It may seem like semantics to argue that Trump support numbers aren’t so cut and dry. But subtlety is important here: the next few months could be filled with efforts by the new administration to push for major changes under the guise of “having an order.” A closer look, however, reveals which policy changes people might actually support — and which they might not.
