Editor's note: This article was originally published in The Surveyor, YouGov America's weekly email newsletter. It has been revised for publication here. Subscribe to The Surveyor for regular updates on YouGov's polling.
When YouGov asks Americans their view of the president's job performance, we give people five options: strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove, and not sure. But when we report our results, we often 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.
But there is sometimes 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 — the last conducted at least partly during Joe Biden's presidency — 56% of Americans strongly approved or disapproved of Biden, while 39% somewhat approved or disapproved.
And these Americans with strongly held opinions about Trump's job performance aren't split evenly. Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump's job performance outnumber those who strongly approve — by a lot. 47% of U.S. adult citizens strongly disapprove of Trump, twice as many as the 23% who strongly approve.
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 isn't unique to Trump. At the end of Biden's term, 42% strongly disapproved of his job performance, three times the 14% who strongly approved.
It hasn't always been the case that far more Americans strongly disapprove 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%.
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.
See the toplines and crosstabs for the August 15 - 18, 2025 Economist/YouGov Poll
Methodology: The poll was conducted among 1,568 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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