This week’s Economist/YouGov poll covers…
- How approval of Trump's handling of inflation has fallen to match Biden's
- A new high in support for increasing military aid to Ukraine
- Bipartisan agreement on the Epstein investigation
- Little support for public broadcasting cuts
Trump approval
- The share of Americans who disapprove of Donald Trump's job performance remains at a record high for Trump's second term: 41% strongly or somewhat approve and 55% disapprove
- Fewer people approve than disapprove of Trump's job performance among women (37% approve / 58% disapprove), men (45% / 52%), 18- to 29-year-olds (28% / 66%), 30- to 44-year-olds (39% / 53%), 45- to 64-year-olds (45% / 53%), Americans 65 or older (48% / 50%), Black Americans (12% / 81%), Hispanic Americans (33% / 62%), and white Americans (48% / 49%)
- Trump's net approval — the share who approve of his job performance minus the share who disapprove — of -15 is a record low for his second term, and is also lower than approval of Trump for most of his first term
- Joe Biden's net job approval was below -15 for most of the second half of his presidency
- More Americans disapprove than approve of Trump's handling of all six issues asked about in this week's poll: national security (-2 net approval), immigration (-6), foreign policy (-11), jobs and the economy (-12), foreign trade (-15), and inflation/prices (-29)
Trump's approval on inflation and prices is nearly as low as the lowest score Joe Biden received during his presidency
- Inflation and prices is the issue Americans are most likely to name as their most important issue, with 21% picking it. That's more than choose jobs and the economy (14%), health care (10%), and immigration (9%)
Russia-Ukraine war
- 33% of Americans want to increase military aid to Ukraine, while 23% would keep aid at the same level, 10% would decrease it, and 16% would stop it altogether
- The 33% who support increasing military aid to Ukraine is the highest share of Americans supporting more aid that Economist / YouGov polls have recorded since first asking about it in September 2022
- The question asks about change in aid, so a new high in support doesn't necessarily mean the amount of aid Americans want Ukraine to receive has gone up. The U.S. had recently paused delivery of some military equipment before this survey
- More Americans say Trump has not been supportive enough of Ukraine (41%) than that he has been too supportive (7%) or that his level of support has been about right (29%)
- 65% of Americans sympathize more with Ukraine in its war, while 4% sympathize more with Russia and 22% side with neither side
- Americans are slightly more likely to expect Russia to be the ultimate winner of the war than to expect Ukraine to win (27% vs. 17%)
- 68% of Americans would prefer for the war to end with Russia controlling no Ukrainian territory, but only 11% expect this to occur
Investigations into Jeffrey Epstein
- Americans are more than twice as likely to strongly or somewhat disapprove as they are to approve of Trump's handling of the Epstein investigation (56% vs. 22%)
- Republicans are more likely to approve than disapprove of Trump's handling of the Epstein investigation (45% vs. 25%)
- Among Republicans, opinions vary by age and MAGA identification
- Republican adults under 45 are far less likely than older Republicans to approve of Trump's handling of investigations into Epstein (29% vs. 56%). They are also more likely to be unsure about it (40% vs. 23%) and to disapprove (31% vs. 20%)
- Republicans who identify as MAGA are more likely to approve of how Trump has handled the Epstein investigations than are Republicans who don't identify as MAGA (56% vs. 38%)
- The vast majority (81%) of Americans — including 89% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans — believe that the government should release all documents it has about the Jeffrey Epstein case
- Two-thirds of Americans — including 84% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans — think the government is covering up evidence it has about Epstein. Only 9% of Americans — including 3% of Democrats and 14% of Republicans — think it isn't
Public broadcasting
- About one-quarter (27%) of Americans say they want the government to decrease (9%) or eliminate (18%) funding for public broadcasting, such as PBS and NPR; about as many (28%) want funding to be increased and 33% would like it to remain the same
- Roughly half (51%) of Republicans want to decrease or eliminate funding for public broadcasting; only 5% of Democrats and 25% of Independents agree
- Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to say they often or sometimes watch or listen to programming from PBS and NPR
— Carl Bialik contributed to this article
Throughout this report, some numbers may appear to be off by 1 because of rounding
See the toplines and crosstabs for the July 18 - 21, 2025 Economist/YouGov Poll
Methodology: The poll was conducted among 1,729 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3.5%.
Image: Getty (Andrew Harnik / Staff)
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