President-elect Donald Trump dances after speaking during the Fox National Patriot Awards at the Tiers Center in Greenville, New York, December 5, 2024.
Heather Khalifa | Associated Press
Americans say they are ready to support President-elect Donald Trump in a second term, with a majority giving the green light to some of his controversial promises on the campaign trail, CNN reports. CNBC National Economic Survey.
Yet the survey also found that the public is sending off amber and red warning lights about some parts of Trump’s agenda.
Overall, the survey found that 54% of the public is “willing and ready to support” Trump as president. This is down 2 percentage points from when he took office in 2016.
Therefore, although Trump won the popular vote this election compared with 2016, Trump’s net approval rating in the polls declined during his second term in office.
“In 2016, more people said ‘I’m not sure’ and took a wait-and-see approach,” said Jay Campbell, a partner at Hart Research, the Democratic pollster who conducted the survey. “. “Those numbers have dropped by half or more…People now know what to expect with Donald Trump.”
The survey surveyed 1,000 people across the country from December 5-8. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.
The survey found that 60% said deploying troops at the border to stop illegal drugs and human trafficking should be a priority for the new administration in 2025, with another 13% saying it should still be done but should be done later in the term. The proposal is opposed by just 24%, including 51% of Democrats, 12% of independents and 3% of Republicans.
A majority of respondents also support cutting personal taxes, increasing deportations of undocumented immigrants, shrinking the size of government, drilling for more oil on federal lands and cutting corporate taxes and regulations.
Where the underlying agenda becomes more controversial is most obviously Trump’s plan to pardon those convicted of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Only 43% support the move, while 50% oppose it, including 87% of Democrats, 46% of independents and 18% of Republicans. This is the question facing the biggest Republican opposition.
Support for increasing tariffs is also lukewarm, with 27% fully supporting it and 24% saying it could be done later in the current term. 42% of respondents opposed it.
The survey found that, overall, Americans are more optimistic about the economic prospects of Trump’s second term than in his first. More than half (51%) said they expect their personal financial situation to improve, 10 points higher than when he was elected in 2016; the same share (51%) said they expect the U.S. economy to will improve, up 5 percentage points from 2016.
There has also been an increase in the share of people who believe they would be worse off, suggesting that Trump is now more polarized than he was during his first term.
At the same time, polls show that US President Biden is about to leave office and Americans are quite pessimistic about the economy. Only 25% think the economic situation is good or good, and 73% think the economic situation is fair or poor. Biden’s final economic approval rating was 36% and his disapproval rating was 58%. His -22 net positive rating is an improvement from his worst numbers in 2022, but is still heavily negative and nowhere near the +5 he was at the start of his tenure.
But Americans are more hopeful about the economic future, fueled by Republican enthusiasm after the election. Forty-six percent of the public expect the economy to improve next year, up 9 points from October, driven largely by a shift from pessimism to optimism among Republicans and, to a lesser extent, independents. Meanwhile, 33% say the economy will get worse, a 16-point increase that’s entirely due to Democrats’ more pessimistic views.
“Trump enters his second term with a more deteriorating sentiment about the current economy but a more hopeful attitude about the future,” said Micah Roberts, a partner in public opinion strategy at the Republican pollster who conducted the survey.
With 40% of respondents saying now is a good time to invest in stocks and 27% saying now is a bad time, Americans are the most positive about stocks since 2019. , this is a huge fluctuation. Americans have always had a neutral or even extremely negative attitude towards the stock market. This was driven by Republicans’ sweeping post-election shift toward the stock market. Their view on whether it is a good time to invest in stocks is now 56 points higher than in August.
Separately, the survey found that while cryptocurrencies may be the hottest thing on Wall Street, that’s not the case on the streets, at least not yet. The survey shows that only 13% of the public said they own cryptocurrency, and 15% said it is the best investment currently. That’s up 4 percentage points since CNBC last asked the question in 2022, but lags far behind real estate, stocks, gold and even savings accounts in the race for the best investments. Only 7% of the public said they would accept a cryptocurrency salary, but another 22% said they might one day accept it. Slightly more than three-fifths, or more than 61%, said they would never accept a cryptocurrency salary.
One-third of cryptocurrency owners belong to the youngest group, aged between 18 and 34 years old.
