What issues make Republicans squeamish? Plus, Trump ignores top priorities
Survey Says is a weekly column rounding up three of the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about. You’ll also find data-based updates on past Daily Kos reporting, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics.
The “unsure” Republican voters
Tucked away in the new Civiqs poll for Daily Kos is an intriguing detail: Republicans are especially uncertain about how to respond to some aspects of Donald Trump’s presidency.
For instance, just 1% of Republican registered voters say they’re “unsure” about the job Trump is doing as president, 2% are “unsure” about eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development, and 4% are “unsure” about ending the Department of Education. In other words, a very small amount even on some major moves.
However, 14% are hesitant about amending the Constitution to permit Trump to run for a third term in office. That is much higher than the share of overall voters who are unsure (7%) as well as the shares of unsure Democrats (1%) and independents (6%).
A larger percentage of Republicans (17%) don’t know if the president should have the power to overrule Congress and “refuse to spend money” it has already allocated, while 16% are unsure whether the outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine matters for U.S. security.
On one hand, voters might not have strong opinions on more detailed policy. However, if that were the case, we shouldn’t see such a large divide between Democratic voters and Republican ones. So it’s striking that Republicans, more so than Democrats and independents, seem to lack opinions on these topics. This suggests some GOP respondents—the vast majority of which are Trump supporters—are conflicted about their support for some of the president’s priorities.
Drew Linzer, the director of Civiqs, said it’s not that some Republican voters are unsure about these questions; they’re unsure about how to respond to them.
Regarding the question regarding changing the Constitution to allow Trump to run again, he told Daily Kos, “What’s going on with survey respondents is they know this isn’t right or something they agree with, but they also support Trump, so they’re conflicted.”
On certain issues where public opinion is not yet solidified, a signal from Trump or another GOP elite could influence public sentiment—just look at how GOP attitudes have evolved regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrectionists.
“In 2021, Republican voters were right there saying, ‘Arrest these people,’ but after years of elite messaging from Trump saying that these individuals were unfairly persecuted, Republicans began to agree and changed their minds,” Linzer said.
Big change, for better and mostly worse
Even in this era of partisan division, Americans can agree on at least one thing: Trump is significantly changing how the federal government operates.
That said, a slightly larger share of Americans in a new CBS News/YouGov poll believe these changes are for the worse (40%) than for the better (35%).
Americans want Trump to give high priority to improving the economy (82%) and inflation (80%), according to the survey. (After all, grocery prices are expected to get worse this year.) Yet the Trump administration is not really addressing those priorities. Instead, it remains fixated on issues that fewer adults want it to focus on, such as the federal workforce (43%).
Indeed, a plurality of Americans (42%) believe the president is giving little to no priority to one of their biggest priorities: fixing inflation. Last month, Trump acknowledged that inflation is back, but instead of taking responsibility, he has deflected blame for rising prices, blaming former President Joe Biden.
But evading responsibility is a trademark Trump move. After all, his plans to impose tariffs on several of America’s largest trading partners will only exacerbate prices. And his hard-line immigration stance, which could lead to the deportation of millions, is also likely to further raise costs.
It seems many Americans haven’t made the connection, though. Fifty-nine percent approve of Trump’s approach to deporting undocumented immigrants, and 64% believe Trump is helping to reduce migrant crossings, despite that his arrest rate as of mid-February was falling short of Biden’s—a statistic that drives the president “nuts,” according to NBC News.
That said, Americans clearly perceive that Trump’s policies are contributing to rising grocery bills, according to the CBS News/YouGov poll. Fifty-two percent of Americans believe Trump’s policies are causing prices to increase, while just 14% believe his policies are lowering prices. (Remember: Trump vowed to lower food costs on Day 1 and has yet to fulfill that promise.)
Americans are also split on the Trump administration slashing the federal workforce (51% approve, 49% disapprove). But that high amount of disapproval may help explain the angry town halls that congressional Republicans are facing, especially since Americans expressed concerns that these cuts will affect their local areas (64%) or reduce services for people like them (51%).
Leave it to Trump to so thoroughly disrupt the country in less than 50 days.
Republicans want tariffs that will raise prices. Yes, really
A series of new polls contain data that seems too absurd to be true: Despite knowing the harm tariffs will cause, Republican voters still want them.
Take this survey from The Economist/YouGov, which shows that 68% of Republicans support a 25% tariff on Mexico, while 57% support the same level of tariff against Canada (both of which Trump has embarrassingly walked back for now). Meanwhile, 78% of Republicans want a 10% tariff on goods from China.
Voters overall are less supportive of these measures, opposing each 25% tariff on net. That’s likely because, as mentioned earlier, tariffs are expected to jack up prices. But the thing is, the surveys show Republicans know that and are still supportive of the tariffs, likely because it’s been such a prominent aspect of the president’s agenda.
That same Economist/YouGov poll shows that 39% of Republicans concede that “mostly companies and people in the U.S.” would bear the brunt of tariffs, while 56% of GOP voters say tariffs would increase the cost of goods and services.
A new Navigator Research survey finds the same result: Despite a bare majority of Republicans (51%) knowing tariffs would drive up their costs, only 23% have an unfavorable view of them.
And a Civiqs poll for Daily Kos found something similar in December: 63% of Republican voters supported tariffs on imports from Canada, China, and Mexico, but those numbers appeared to have since trickled down a bit now that voters understand the impact of these policies.
Morning Consult clocked the decreased appetite for tariffs too, even among Republicans. According to a poll released on Tuesday, 65% of Republican voters backed a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico (just 21% of GOP voters oppose this tariff). And while that’s high support, it’s also down 3 percentage points from where Republican voters were in January, according to another poll from the firm.
Even if Republicans don’t want to vote in their own financial interest, they’re likely taking signals from Trump—who recently walked back tariffs on Canada and Mexico (again) for one month after the markets tanked in response to him enacting them.
Any updates?
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Congress still has significant work to do in diversifying its leadership, but according to the Pew Research Center, the current Congress is the most racially and ethnically diverse in history so far. Notably, it includes the first openly transgender member and more Generation Z representatives than ever before.
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Trump doesn’t seem to know whether he wants tariffs or doesn’t, and given the whiplash, it’s no surprise that Americans feel he’s moving too quickly. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll finds that most Americans (56%) believe the president is hurrying to implement changes without fully considering the consequences.
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ top deputies aren’t the only ones wanting to distance themselves from him—voters feel the same way. A new survey from Quinnipiac University reveals that only 20% of voters registered in New York City approve of his performance as mayor, while 67% disapprove. Although he’s still running for reelection, the poll finds that more of the city’s registered Democrats (31%) prefer embattled former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the position, compared with just 11% preferring Adams.
Vibe check
With food prices rising, it’s no surprise that registered voters’ thoughts on the economy are sour. Civiqs finds that 40% rate the economy as “fairly bad” and 25% as “very bad.” Twenty-four percent say it’s “fairly good, but just 4% say “very good.” And it remains to be seen how long those sentiments will last.
Andrew Mangan contributed research.