President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while in flight on Air Force One from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., to Joint Base Andrews, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A new CNN poll released on Friday showed a majority of Americans view President Donald Trump’s first term in office as a “failure” and worry about the future of the U.S. economy.
The SSRS Opinion Panel survey of 1,209 adults from across the U.S. was conducted between January 9-12. Trump’s approval rating landed at a soft 39%, with 61% of respondents disapproving. The result, however, was an improvement from the last survey in late October, which had a 37% to 63% approval-to-disapproval split. The October result was his highest disapproval in the history of the poll, dating back to January 2017 — just surpassing the post-January 6, 2021, number of 62%.
The most recent poll found that 58% of Americans “call the first year of Trump’s second term a failure,” with the majority of Americans worried Trump is focused on the “wrong priorities.”
For those Americans who do approve of Trump’s job performance, 26% say his actions on “immigration/border control” are the reason they approve, while 19% said the “economy/cost of living concerns.” 35% of respondents who disapprove of Trump’s job performance cited “temperament/personal behavior” as the most important reason for their opinion. 15% cited “foreign policy concerns” as their top reason for viewing Trump negatively.
The poll also found pessimism in the public as far as their own economic future goes, with just 4 out of 10 respondents expecting the economy to be better a year from now, which was down from 56% before Trump took office.
58% of Americans also said they believe Trump has “gone too far” in expanding and using the powers of the president, up from 52% last year.
Read the full poll results here.
