What People May Think about Donald Trump

Just some data for which I thought Angry Bear readers might be interested. It is about 4 months old and “probably” has some bearing to what people are thinking.

This article from August 2025 was originally published in The Surveyor, YouGov America’s weekly email newsletter. It has been revised for publication. The Surveyor has regular updates on YouGov’s polling. David Montgomery.

“Two-thirds of Americans have strong feelings about Donald Trump — and most of them are negative,” YouGov.

YouGov surveyed Americans on their view of the president’s job performance. They gave people five options: strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove, and not sure. When YouGov reports the results, it will summarize results by combining answers into three categories: strongly or somewhat approve, strongly or somewhat disapprove, and not sure. In most cases, what we care about most is the shares with positive and negative opinions. Anyways, you amongst multiple results.

There can be real value in the distinction between someone who “strongly approves” of a politician and someone else who “somewhat approves.” This is especially true for Donald Trump, a politician about whom few Americans have weak opinions. According to the most recent Economist / YouGov Poll (the source of all numbers in this section unless otherwise labeled), 70% of Americans say they strongly  approve or disapprove of Trump’s job performance, while just 27% say they somewhat approve or disapprove. By comparison, in the January 19 – 21, 2025 survey, (conducted partly during Joe Biden’s presidency), 56% of Americans strongly approved or disapproved of Biden, while 39% somewhat approved or disapproved.

Those Americans with strongly held opinions about Trump’s job performance are not split evenly. Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance were outnumbering those who were strongly approving by a lot. Forty-seven percent (47%) of U.S. adult citizens strongly disapprove of Trump or twice as many as the 23% who were strongly approving of him.

Overall, most Democrats disapprove of Trump and most Republicans approve of him. But a far larger share of Democrats say they strongly disapprove of Trump than the share of Republicans who strongly approve of Trump (83% vs. 54%). Likewise, 95% of Americans who call themselves “very liberal” strongly disapprove of Trump, compared to 72% of the “very conservative” strongly approving of him.

Having more Americans strongly disapprove than strongly approve of a president is not unique to just Trump. At the end of Biden’s term, 42% strongly disapproved of his job performance, three times the 14% who strongly approved.

It has not always been the case of far more Americans strongly disapproving of Trump than strongly approve. When his second term began in January 2025, 36% of Americans strongly disapproved of Trump and 34% strongly approved. The 69% with a strong opinion about Trump was similar to the 70% with strong opinions today, but their split between approval and disapproval was much more even.

Since then, the share of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance has risen from 36% to 47%, while the share who strongly approve has fallen from 34% to 23%.

A simple graph to get the point across.

This 21-point decline in Trump’s net approval — the share who approve minus the share who disapprove — among those with strong opinions reflects declines in support across the political spectrum. In January, 71% of Republicans strongly approved of Trump’s job performance; today 54% do. The share of Democrats who strongly disapprove of Trump has risen from 71% to 83% over the same time.

None of this says anything about what Americans will think of Trump in the future. But an important part of understanding current political opinion is that right now, opposition to Trump is much more intense than his support is.

Two-thirds of Americans have strong feelings about Donald Trump — and most of them are negative | YouGov