Nearly two thirds of American voters support President Trump’s policy of deporting illegal migrants, according to a recent Fox News poll.
The survey was released on Thursday, roughly two months after the president took office, and covered a broad range of the Trump administration’s agenda, from tax policy to foreign affairs to cultural issues.
According to the data, Trump’s most popular policy was banning trans-identified athletes from competing in women’s sports, which respondents supported by more than 2 – 1, with 68% in favor and only 30% opposed. Clear majorities also supported making English the official language (66% – 32%), deporting illegal aliens (63% – 35%), having the government only recognize two genders (54% – 44%) and increasing the production of fossil fuels (53% – 44%).
Other keystone policies of the Trump era were more contentious – slight majorities opposed significantly cutting the federal workforce (51% – 46%) and ending federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs (51% – 45%). A majority of voters (57%) said that much or even almost all government spending was wasteful, but a larger majority expressed concern about Trump’s implementation of spending cuts.
Trump’s least popular policy was his proposed annexation of Greenland.
“Trump’s more flamboyant ideas about expanding U.S. territories and holdings have limited public support, so much so that one wonders if they are simply designed to rattle some cages,” Daron Shaw, a Republican pollster who conducted the survey along with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, told Fox News. “But on some of his more specific cultural and social policies, there is substantial support across a broad range of constituencies.”
Some Democratic pundits have struggled to reconcile their opposition to Trump’s immigration platform with its broad popular support.
“I think that, obviously, the president has kind of blanketed the airwaves, saying that all of these people being deported are criminals,” PBS White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López told CNN’s Dana Bash on Friday. Polling before Trump took office also showed majority support for deportations – a Harris poll from last April found that 51% of Americans supported mass deportation of illegals.
Support for Trump’s tariff policies varied dramatically based on the target nation. Mexico, Canada, and China, the United States’ three largest trading partners, respectively, have all been hit with tariff hikes since Trump took office. A clear majority (55% – 44%) supported increased tariffs on China, which has emerged as America’s leading geopolitical adversary in the 21st century, but support for tariffs on Mexico was much more tepid (43% – 56%). Tariffs on Canada were the least popular, with only 38% of Americans in favor and 61% opposed.
The president’s net approval rating in the poll was -2, (49% approved to 51% who disapproved). Men were slightly more likely than women to approve of Trump’s job performance (50% vs 47%). 52% of white respondents approved of the president’s performance compared to 44% of Hispanics and 29% of blacks.
Recent polling has also found that support for the Democratic Party is at an all time low – a CNN poll found that just 29% of Americans have a favorable view of Democrats, the lowest number since the survey began in 1992, and an NBC poll found that only 27% of Americans approve of the party.