What the polls say about Trump’s presidency at 100 days
As President Donald Trump hits the 100-day mark of his presidency, a spate of new polling shows significant warning signs on signature issues like the economy and cutting the size of government.
Trump is earning slightly higher marks than at this point in his first term, and his overall standing is boosted by a coalescing of Republicans behind their president. But Trump’s low-to-mid-40s approval ratings are also far from the type of honeymoon ratings Americans gave his predecessors.
He has also lost ground on the economy, with more voters expressing displeasure with his handling of inflation and with his sweeping push for global tariffs, which have roiled the stock market and scrambled global alliances. And while immigration remains Trump’s strongest issue in most surveys, several recent polls have found his public support slipping.
Here’s a look at what the polls say about Trump’s job performance right now.
Approval rating
There’s a clear trend when it comes to Trump’s approval rating around the 100-day mark: It’s slightly higher than in his first term (in most polling), but it has fallen compared with ratings in recent months, and he’s below where previous presidents were at a similar point after having taken office.
Among adults polled for the new NBC News Stay Tuned Poll powered by SurveyMonkey, 45% approve of Trump’s job performance, compared with 55% who disapprove.
Among Republicans, 88% approve of Trump’s job and 12% disapprove. But independents and Democrats are overwhelmingly negative — 68% of independents and 93% of Democrats disapprove.
Older Americans, white Americans and those with lower levels of education are likelier to back Trump, with younger voters, highly educated voters and nonwhite voters likelier to disapprove of his job (with Black voters more negative than Hispanic ones).
Other recent polls, of both adults and registered voters, find Trump at similar levels of approval. This month’s CNBC All-America Economic Survey found his approval at 44% and his disapproval at 51% among American adults, Fox News found him at 44% approval among registered voters and 55% disapproval, and Gallup’s most recent survey of adults this month has him with a 44% approval rating and a 53% disapproval rating.
Trump’s lowest mark in recent polls comes from an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos survey released Sunday, which found him at 39% approval and 55% disapproval among adults last week. And his highest mark of the month came from CBS News/YouGov, which still had him in negative territory, with his approval rating at 47% and his disapproval at 53%. A CBS News/YouGov survey released Sunday had Trump’s approval rating at 45% and his disapproval at 55%.
But while Trump’s standing now is a bit better than it was at this point in his first term, he’s polling behind his predecessors. Trump’s average approval rating of 45% among adults in the first quarter of Gallup’s 2025 polling falls well below the 59% approval rating average for all presidents since World War II, including Joe Biden, whose Gallup approval rating at this point in 2021 was 56%.
Economy
Trump said it himself on NBC News’ “Meet the Press”: Concern about rising prices was one of the main reasons he won the 2024 election. Just a few months into his term, there are clear signs that Americans are wavering on his handling of this key issue.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Friday found that half of registered voters said they felt Trump had made the economy worse since he took office, 27% said the economy was about the same, and 21% said he had made it better.
Trump’s economic approval rating in both the April CNBC All-America Economic Survey (43%) and the March NBC News poll (44%) is hovering near the lowest marks in NBC News/CNBC polling of Trump’s first and second terms.
Both CNBC and NBC News Stay Tuned polling finds Trump’s approval rating on handling inflation and the cost of living near 40%, and the CNBC poll found that 57% of Americans believe the United States is either headed for a recession or already in one.
As Trump’s sweeping tariffs proposals have dominated the global economic discussion and prompted a significant reaction in the stock market and in business planning, Americans are giving him low marks on the issue.
Sixty-one percent of Americans in the NBC News Stay Tuned poll disapprove of Trump’s handling of trade and tariffs, compared with 39% who approve of it. And 54% say they expect his tariff policies will make their personal finances worse in the next year, compared with 23% who say their finances will stay about the same and 24% who believe their finances will get better.
Meanwhile, Pew found that majorities of American adults weren’t confident Trump could negotiate favorable trade deals or make good decisions about tax policy and believed his policies are hurting the economy.
Immigration
Immigration, arguably Trump’s signature issue since he launched his first campaign for president nearly 10 years ago, remains a stronger issue for him.
Polls often show Trump faring best on immigration and border security when respondents are asked to rate his handling of a variety of issues, with some surveys finding a slight majority giving him positive marks. But recently, several surveys have found split or negative views on his handling of the issue, after he generally scored better on the issue earlier in this term.
In the new NBC News Stay Tuned survey, Americans gave Trump his highest marks on any issue when they were asked how he is handling border security and immigration — 49% approving and 51% disapproving, with Republicans fully behind him. The New York Times/Siena College poll found 47% of registered voters approving and 51% disapproving of his handling of immigration.
Meanwhile, the CNBC survey also found that Trump’s handling of the southern border with Mexico (53% approve, 41% disapprove) and his handling of deportations of immigrants in the country illegally (52% approve, 45% disapprove) were two of his best-testing issues.
But the recent Fox News poll found something different: While 55% of registered voters approved of Trump’s performance on border security and 40% disapproved, his numbers were worse on immigration and deportations, over which the public was effectively split.
A Wall Street Journal survey found a majority of registered voters (54%) favored deporting “suspected foreign gang members” to El Salvador without court hearings to determine their gang memberships, while 43% opposed the policy. That survey was conducted just as the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador began to grab headlines.
But some polls have found some warning signs for Trump on the implementation of his deportation policies.
A majority of Americans (59%) in the NBC News Stay Tuned survey opposed the administration’s moves to revoke people’s visas if they are determined to have “adverse foreign policy consequences,” including students who have protested Israel’s war in Gaza, while 41% supported the efforts.
And a plurality of adults (45%) in a recent Economist/YouGov poll said the administration’s effort to arrest and deport immigrants had “gone too far,” while 27% said it was “about right” and 20% said it has “not gone far enough”; 8% weren’t sure.
The Wall Street Journal poll found that while a majority of registered voters supported detaining and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, nearly two-thirds opposed deporting them if they had lived in the United States for more than 10 years, paid taxes on earnings and had no criminal records.
Musk and DOGE
The early weeks of Trump’s second term were largely defined by a sweeping effort to drastically reduce the size of the federal government, led by billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk indicated last week that his work for DOGE may be winding down, and polls have consistently shown that he is broadly unpopular.
The NBC News Stay Tuned survey found that 59% of adults had unfavorable views of Musk, while 41% viewed him favorably. A majority of registered voters (55%) in the Wall Street Journal survey said he has “too much power,” while 36% said he has the right amount of power, and 5% said he has too little.
But voters have raised concerns about Musk and DOGE’s slash-and-burn approach to shrinking the federal government, even as they have been open to the idea of addressing government inefficiencies.
The Fox News poll found registered voters divided over whether DOGE will lead to a more efficient government or improvements in the economy. Pew found that 59% of adults say Trump’s approach to cutting federal departments and agencies is too careless.
A plurality of voters (46%) in a March national NBC News survey said DOGE is a good idea, while 40% said it is a bad idea. But there is concern among partisans on both sides about the department’s work. While one-third of voters said its work should continue and another third said it should stop, 28% of registered voters in the middle said DOGE’s efforts are needed but should slow down to better assess the impact.
Other issues
Trump has also pushed in his first 100 days to dismantle federal programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and some surveys have found that those efforts haven’t been popular.
The NBC News Stay Tuned poll found that 61% of adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of DEI efforts, while 39% approve. And nearly two-thirds said DEI programs in workplaces and schools are helpful to the country, while 35% said they are harmful.
Trump has also gotten some negative marks on his handling of foreign policy, with 53% of Americans in the CNBC survey disapproving of his handling of the issue and 42% approving.
A majority of registered voters (54%) in the New York Times/Siena College survey disapproved of Trump’s handling of foreign conflicts, with a similar share (56%) disapproving specifically of how he has handled the war between Russia and Ukraine.
