WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s second term has been eventful. You wouldn’t know it from his approval numbers.
An AP-NORC poll in January found that about 4 in 10 US adults approve of Trump’s performance as president. It is virtually unchanged from March 2025, shortly after taking office for the second time.
The new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows subtle signs of vulnerability for the Republican president. Trump has not convinced Americans that the economy is in good shape, and many question whether he has the right priorities as he increasingly focuses on foreign intervention. His approval rating on immigration, one of his signature issues, has also fallen since taking office.
Here’s how Americans’ views of Trump have changed — and haven’t changed in the past year, according to an AP-NORC poll.
About 4 in 10 Americans consistently approved of Trump’s performance
Call it a gift or a curse — for all his unpredictability, Trump’s approval numbers just don’t change much.
This was largely during his first term in office as well. At the start of his first term, 42% of Americans approved of his handling of the presidency. There were some ups and downs in the years that followed, but he left office with almost the same approval rating.
That level of consistency on presidential approval numbers could be the new normal for US politics — or it could be unique to Trump. Gallup polls since the 1950s show that presidential approval ratings have risen less consistently over time. But President Joe Biden had a slightly different experience. Biden, a Democrat, entered the White House with higher approval numbers than Trump had ever received, but they fell rapidly in his first two years in office, then remained low for the rest of his term.
Most Americans have held a critical view of Trump throughout his time in office, and Americans are twice as likely to say he’s focused on the wrong priorities than the right ones. About half of US adults say they are mostly focused on the wrong priorities a year into their second term, and about 2 in 10 say they are mostly focused on the right priorities. Another roughly 2 in 10 say it was an even mix, and 14% say they don’t have an opinion.
Challenges on the economy
The economy has haunted Trump in his first year in the White House, despite his insistence that “the Trump economic boom has officially begun.”
Only 37% of US adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. That’s up slightly from 31 percent in December — which marked a low point for Trump — but Trump started with a low approval rating on the issue, which doesn’t leave him much room for error.
The economy is a new problem for Trump. His approval rating on the issue in his first term fluctuated but was usually higher. Nearly half of Americans approved of Trump’s economic approach for most of his first term in the White House, and he has struggled to adapt to this as a weakness. Americans care far more about costs than they did in Trump’s first term, and like Biden, he has insisted that the US economy is not a problem, while the vast majority describe it as “poor.”
About 6 in 10 US adults say Trump has done more to lower the cost of living in his second term, while only about 2 in 10 say he has done more to help. About a quarter say it has had no impact.
Opinions of Trump’s handling of immigration have plummeted
When Trump took office, immigration was among his strongest issues. It has since faded, a worrying sign for Trump, who campaigned on both economic prosperity and a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Only 38% of US adults approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, down from 49% in March. The survey was conducted between January 8-11, shortly after the death of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
But there are signs that Americans are still giving Trump some leeway on immigration. About half of US adults say Trump has “gone too far” when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the country illegally, unchanged from April despite an immigration crackdown that expanded to US cities in the second half of the year.
Nearly half of Americans, 45 percent, say Trump has helped immigration and border security “a lot” or “a little” in his second term. This is one area where Democrats are more willing to give Trump some credit. About 2 in 10 Democrats say Trump has helped on the issue, higher than the share of Democrats who say he has helped with costs or job creation.
As Trump moves toward foreign policy, most Americans disapprove of his approach
Trump has focused more on foreign policy in his second term, and polls show most Americans disapprove of his approach.
But like Trump’s overall approval, views on how to handle foreign policy have changed little in his second term, despite sweeping actions, including his push to control Greenland and the recent military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
About 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of foreign policy, and a majority of Americans, 56 percent, say Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries.
Trump’s continued focus on global issues could be a problem, given its stark contrast to the “America First” platform he ran on and Americans’ growing concern about costs at home. But it may also be hard to change minds on the issue — even if Trump takes more dramatic action in the coming months.
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The AP-NORC survey of 1,203 adults was conducted Jan. 8-11, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the US population. The margin of sampling error for adults is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.