Surprisingly, Fox polls tend not to have much of a skew one way or the other, so I'd like to focus on that one. Trump was at 49%/51% in a Fox poll conducted in March, which means there's been a big drop in approval (5 points) and a 4-point rise in disapproval. Why?
In this poll, Trump is still getting good numbers on border security and okay numbers on immigration overall, while he's getting clobbered on the economy. But it's starting to seem as if that's not enough to please some former Trump supporters.
Trump regularly said on the campaign trail that he'd fix all of America's problems "quickly." I think many Americans responded to that because, while the Biden administration actually did a lot, it wasn't very good at telling people that it was doing a lot, so many voters didn't believe it was doing much of anything. Millions of Americans weren't happy with the economy in 2024 and came to the conclusion that President Biden didn't care. Republican voters thought Biden didn't care about immigration because they heard about border crossers incessantly on Fox News; some independents probably shared that concern, as did moderates who lived in or near the communities that were dropoff points for immigrants transported by Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott.
Voters who were concerned about immigration are seeing swift action from the Trump administration -- it's horrible to you and me, but it's happening, and it's happening quickly. Elon Musk's DOGE is moving fast and breaking the government -- again, in a horrible fashion, but it's quick.
Voters who believed Trump's promises undoubtedly imagined that he could lower egg prices as fast as DOGE destroys government agencies and ICE rounds up green card holders. They might have believed that Trump's tariffs would swiftly lead to awesome deals with other countries. Instead, the only thing that's happening quickly is turbulence in the stock and bond markets.
Also, Trump promised to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine swiftly. He's failed on both counts, and now his foreign policy approval is 40%/54%.
In my post yesterday, I said that there appear to be quite a few "trust the plan" voters -- people who think things are bad now, but they'll be better in a year or so, because Trump has such a big, shrewd brain. The Fox poll suggests that the number of people who believe this may be shrinking. Notice that a majority of poll respondents not only believe Trump's policies will hurt America in the short run (54%), but also believe they'll hurt America in the long run (51%).
A majority are discouraged about the next four years:
If they're not buying what I've called "the long con," he could be screwed, because it's not as if he'll actually do anything to improve economic conditions for ordinary Americans. His one Big Economic Idea is bad for everyone. So his only hope is to keep Americans believing that the golden age is coming and everyone should just be patient. If onetime supporters are losing faith in that, he's in trouble. And if he is, it's because they assume that a guy who seems like a Man of Action in other realms ought to be capable of some sort of aggressive action on their economic behalf. They'll never believe us when we tell them he's incapable of that, but they may be slowly learning now.
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