CNN
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In President Donald Trump’s first White House term, public confidence in his handling of the economy was always among his greatest strengths. But in the early days of his second term, public views about his economic performance have quickly become his most conspicuous potential vulnerability.
Even before Trump rattled the stock market this week by acknowledging his trade agenda could trigger a recession, several public polls had shown his job approval for managing the economy lagging below his overall job performance rating as president.
That’s a dramatic reversal from Trump’s first term, when approval for his handling of the economy exceeded his overall approval rating every time the CNN/SRSS, Gallup or CNBC polls asked the public about both over his four years.
In an early February poll this year, by contrast, Gallup found, for the first time, that fewer people gave Trump positive marks on the economy than on his overall performance — and that his economic grades were lower than at any point during his first four years. Likewise, the CNN/SRSS poll released Wednesday found Trump’s approval rating on the economy (44%) fell slightly below his overall approval rating (45%) for the first time in either of his presidential terms — and matched the lowest economic approval rating the survey ever recorded during his first four years. Since January, the public’s assessment of Trump’s economic performance has often come in below his rating for any other major issue, such as immigration or foreign affairs.
This early into his term, opinions about Trump’s economic management are hardly set in stone. Pollsters agree most Americans are willing to give him more time to make progress on inflation, the issue that mattered to more of his voters than any other in Election Day polls. (Inflation rose slightly less than expected in the latest government report released Wednesday.) In many surveys, Trump’s overall job approval is slightly higher than at this point in his first term (though still below that of any other new president in the history of modern polling this soon after taking office).
But the inversion of the first-term pattern on his economic approval still represents an early warning signal for Trump. It suggests that if he can’t make progress against high prices, the same frustration with inflation that sapped support for Joe Biden could ultimately weaken Trump, too — particularly because polls also show that most voters do not see Trump prioritizing inflation as much as they do themselves.
The fact that public support for Trump’s handling of the economy has dipped so early in his second term “is a red flag for him,” said long-time Democratic pollster Nick Gourevitch. “In the election, there were a ton of different topics, but the number one topic in every single poll, and with every key group that switched (toward Trump), was economics and inflation. If voters were telling us they wanted something to change, it was that. So, if that doesn’t change, and that’s where the voters who put you in office wanted you to go, that’s a problem for him.”
In Trump’s first term, confidence in the economy was a stabilizing force for him, reinforcing a floor under his standing with the public even when he was battered by storms on other fronts. At the outset of his second term, these early results suggest apprehension about the economy has become a source of political instability for Trump — and a potential ceiling on his support.
Trump will never again appear on a ballot — assuming he is not serious in his frequent comments about breaking the Constitutional limit of two presidential terms. But as American politics has grown more polarized, a president’s approval rating has become a huge factor in elections during his tenure. In 2018, for instance, exit polls found that fully 9 in 10 voters who disapproved of Trump’s performance supported Democratic House candidates, while nearly as many who approved of him backed Republicans. Even though Biden was not on the ballot in 2024, over 4 in 5 voters who disapproved of his performance likewise voted against his successor in the race, Vice President Kamala Harris. The stronger Trump is, the better Republican chances will be in every election through 2028, and vice versa for Democrats.
And, as for every president, voters’ views about the economy will be a critical determinant of that strength.
Though Trump has portrayed his second term as the dawn of a new “golden age” for the country, surveys consistently show his return to the White House has done little to dispel Americans’ gloom about the economy.
The University of Michigan’s venerable Index of Consumer Sentiment showed a bump in economic optimism after Trump’s victory last fall, driven mostly by improved assessments among Republicans. But in February, the first full month of Trump’s second term, the index notably dipped, falling even below its level during the final months of Biden’s term. Though the public’s assessment of current economic conditions in the survey slightly improved in February compared to last fall, that was outweighed by a sharp deterioration in Americans’ future expectations. In fact, the University of Michigan found respondents more pessimistic about their personal financial prospects over the next year than at any point in 2024. In the new CNN poll, the share of voters expecting the economy to be in poor shape one year from now also spiked between January and February.
The wellspring of this continuing unease isn’t difficult to identify. The latest University of Michigan poll found expectations about future inflation surged in both January and February. In a late February CBS/YouGov national poll, over three-fourths of those surveyed said their incomes were not keeping pace with prices. (The results on that question were equally glum among White, Black and Latino respondents.) In an NPR/PBS-News/Marist poll taken around the same time, nearly three-fifths of adults said they expected grocery prices to increase over the next six months.
Early polls consistently show good marks for Trump on some issues, particularly immigration, and this week’s CNN/SRSS survey found about half of Americans believe he can bring needed change and manage the government effectively.
But polls show the intractable concern about prices that helped propel Trump back to the White House is now functioning more as a headwind against him. Trump’s 42% economic approval rating in Gallup’s February poll was three percentage points lower than his nadir during his first term (45% in April 2017). The 56% share of Americans who disapproved of Trump’s economic performance in the new CNN/SRSS poll far exceeded his worst first term result; at no point in Trump’s first four years did a majority of Americans disapprove of his economic management in a CNN poll.
Across all these measures, the numbers are especially precarious for Trump among independent voters. Independents’ assessment of current conditions in the latest University of Michigan survey, and their expectations for future conditions, were both worse than at any point during Trump’s first term — even the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Fewer than one-third of independents approved of his economic performance in the February Gallup poll; that was also lower than at any point during his first term, according to results provided by Gallup. In this week’s CNN/SRSS poll, only 20% of independents thought Trump’s policies had improved the economy; nearly three times as many thought his agenda has hurt economic conditions.
Jay Campbell, a Democratic pollster who conducts the CNBC survey on the economy with a Republican partner, said Trump’s extraordinary bond with his base ensures he will maintain a solid floor of support regardless of what happens in the economy.
But the economic results, Campbell predicted, will heavily influence Trump’s standing with the less partisan voters who can tip elections, such as this fall’s gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and next year’s midterms. “We know from the last couple of decades of polling that independents are highly sensitive to pocketbook issues and to the economy, much more than any other political issue,” Campbell said.
Micah Roberts, the Republican pollster who partners on the CNBC economic survey, said these sagging assessments of Trump’s economic performance should not concern him — yet. “I think it’s a little early to be waving any type of warning flags about what this means for his presidency,” Roberts said.
Roberts pointed out that even during Trump’s first term, his approval ratings on the economy started relatively modest and then substantially improved over the next three years, until the pandemic erupted in early 2020.
Trump’s strength with the public on the economy “hasn’t gone away,” Roberts said. “People still believe he has strong ideas on the economy. I think it will take a while for his policies to start making a difference and then he’ll do what he does very well” — i.e., market the results.
Also benefiting the president is that voters’ dismal assessment of Biden’s economic performance has clearly weakened the Democrats’ credibility as an alternative. Even polling conducted late last month by Gourevitch’s firm and a partner found that more voters trust Republicans than Democrats to handle inflation and the economy.
Still, Roberts agrees voters will remain patient only for so long. Americans are closely watching Trump’s “ability to improve economic conditions for everybody, including the people who are struggling the most, so he is going to be held to that standard,” Roberts said. “My question would be: Is this the right time to start measuring that — some 40 days in? In June, I think if things drop off further specifically with Republicans and independents then you can start (to see) flashing yellow lights.”
Like many Republican strategists, Roberts believes the waves of disruption Trump has brought to domestic and international policy are delivering to his voters exactly what they wanted. “It just seems like it’s a firehose of new direction that I think by and large for his core supporters is being received very, very well,” Roberts said. “This is the stuff they voted for.”
But Democrats see this same geyser of controversy as a vulnerability for Trump. They believe it signals to voters that he has lost focus on inflation, the public’s top concern.
“Nothing about his first few weeks has really been around the core problem that voters believe is most important,” said Gourevitch. “I don’t think people are hearing a focus on inflation and costs from Trump.”
Polls support that analysis. In Wednesday’s CNN/SRSS poll, nearly three-fifths of all adults — and two-thirds of independents — said Trump hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems. The late February CBS poll documented the gap most dramatically: While about 4 in 5 Americans said the economy and inflation should be the highest priority for Trump, only about one-third said they believed Trump was prioritizing either of them.
In that CBS poll, most people said Trump was primarily focused on immigration — which was a central concern for his voters — and shrinking the federal workforce. Campbell argues that whatever voters feel about the Elon Musk-led effort to squeeze federal agencies, they simply do not consider it as relevant as the continuing pressure on their cost of living.
“Nobody likes ‘waste and fraud’ in the federal government, and people think it can be fixed, but at the end of the day that doesn’t affect their daily lives and nobody believes it does,” Campbell said. “It all ladders up to, ‘What is this administration doing that is helping me now?’ And people don’t have anything they can point to in that regard.”
The belief among most voters that Trump is not focused on their principal concern —inflation — is a risky position for any elected official. But the greater risk for Trump will come if voters conclude his agenda is not so much ignoring the problem of inflation as compounding it.
Public opinion on tariffs is somewhat unsettled, because they are not an issue that many Americans have deeply held views about. But surveys leave no doubt many are concerned that Trump’s on-again, off-again flurry of new levies could cause prices to rise, despite his promises to the contrary. In an Economist/YouGov survey released earlier this week, 7 in 10 adults said tariffs would raise prices, and 3 in 5 said that such levies would hurt, not help, average Americans.
The debate coming later this year over the Republican plan to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts will offer Democrats another chance to portray the GOP agenda as raising costs for families. That’s because the House and Senate Republican tax and spending plans are likely to retrench Washington’s spending on Medicaid and subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to help fund the extension of the tax cuts.
Still, regardless of how voters interpret these policy debates, or even whether they are fully aware of them, pollsters agree what makes inflation unique is that Americans reach an unfiltered judgment about its direction in their daily experience. “The one difference between costs and every other political issue is that there is not a news or social media lens that can impact your perception,” said Gourevitch. “You know how much eggs cost when you go to the grocery store.”
Trump’s unbreakable hold on his base voters, his formidable skills as a political communicator, and the entrenched doubts about Democrats may provide him some defense if discontent over inflation persists. Democrats privately expect that Trump eventually will seek to send Americans a direct payment with his name on it (as he did during Covid), marketed this time as a “dividend” from tariff revenues or DOGE savings.
But the clear signal of Trump’s first weeks back in the White House is that he isn’t immune from inflation’s corrosive effect. Over time, Trump may find it no easier than Biden to keep his approval ratings high if prices remain high as well.
