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WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is riding high. Marquette Law School’s first poll since the November election shows Trump with his highest approval rating since March at 53%.
“I think Trump is getting a little bit of a winner’s bump,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll. "People seem to be a little more favorable to him. They seem to think his job approval was a little better, and they’re giving him somewhat of the benefit of the doubt on his cabinet appointees."
Conversely, the poll shows President Joe Biden has his lowest approval rating. Only 34% of adults approve of his job performance, while 66% disapprove.
“With Biden, I think this is the culmination of a year-long fall in approval, culminating in him dropping out of the presidential race, and now here at the end, his approval is quite low,” Franklin said. “Also, there’s a very large percentage, 71 percent, who disapprove of his pardon of Hunter Biden.”
Franklin also noted that while the public generally doesn’t see the economy in a positive light, negative views are dropping.
In this survey, 21% said the economy was poor. That’s a 10% dip from October. This is the smallest percentage calling the economy poor in Marquette’s national polls since September of last year.
“Donald Trump’s side of the campaign emphasized negative things about the economy. Now we’re not getting those messages, those advertisements, those comments as much,” Franklin said. "At the same time that people see the economy a little better, there wasn’t any improvement in how they think their own personal financial situation is going. So, I’ll watch that over the coming months to see if people start to feel that their checkbook is better, even if they are beginning to see the national economy is a little better."
Trump is threatening to impose a 25% tax on everything imported from Canada and Mexico as a way to force both countries to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs coming into the United States. He’s also threatening additional tariffs on imports from China. The poll found the public is skeptical of the tariffs. 26% said they would help the economy and 46% said they would hurt the economy.
When broken down by party, Republicans are much more confident that tariffs would help the economy at 49%. Only 5% of Democrats think so.
“We’ll see what he actually does once in office and how that fits with the American public, but right now, tariffs are not, on balance, a terribly popular policy for him,” Franklin said.
Other Trump policies enjoy more support, including his promise to deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
“Deporting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally has over 60 percent support in this survey,” Franklin said. “That’s up from the mid-50s before the election. Now that is qualified when we ask about people who have jobs here in America, or people who have been here for a long time and not committed crimes. Support for deportations falls to below 50 percent. But it does show that on the broad stroke of deportations, Trump has support for that. On the details, especially for people who don’t have criminal records, it may prove a little thornier for him. So, as with tariffs, I think we have to await what he actually does once in office and how those policies then fit with the public”
Pollsters interviewed 1063 adults nationwide from Dec. 2-11. The margin of error was +/- 3.6 percentage points.
You can view the full results of the survey here.
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