WASHINGTON — About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approved of President Donald Trump’s performance as president as of early January, according to a new AP-NORC poll — a figure virtually unchanged from March 2025, shortly after Trump began his second term. The poll, conducted Jan. 8–11, 2026, among 1,203 adults, found Trump’s overall approval has remained unusually stable despite a year of active domestic and foreign policy moves.
The findings reveal specific weaknesses on two of his signature issues: his approval on the economy stands at 37%, and his approval on immigration has fallen 11 percentage points since March 2025 — a shift that represents one of the more significant movements in an otherwise static picture.
Economy approval at 37%, cost concerns run high
Just 37% of U.S. adults approved of how Trump was handling the economy, according to the poll — up from 31% in December 2025, which the AP described as a low point for Trump on the issue. University of Michigan survey data show median one-year inflation expectations at 4.2% as of January 2026, reflecting continued household concern about prices.
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults said Trump had done more to hurt the cost of living in his second term, while only about 2 in 10 said he had done more to help. About one-quarter said he had not made an impact on costs, according to the poll.
Trump has said “the Trump economic boom has officially begun,” but the vast majority of Americans describe the economy as “poor,” the AP reported.
Immigration approval falls to 38%
Trump’s approval on immigration stood at 38%, down from 49% in March 2025, according to the poll. The survey was conducted in the days following the death of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
About half of U.S. adults said Trump had “gone too far” when it came to deporting immigrants living in the country illegally — a figure unchanged since April 2025, despite an immigration enforcement effort that spread to cities across the country in the second half of the year, according to the AP.
Not all immigration findings pointed in the same direction. About 45% of U.S. adults said Trump had helped on immigration and border security “a lot” or “a little” in his second term. About 2 in 10 Democrats said Trump had helped on the issue — a higher share than those who credited him on costs or job creation, the poll found.
Foreign policy draws broad disapproval
About 6 in 10 Americans disapproved of how Trump was handling foreign policy, according to the poll. Views on the issue have changed little during Trump’s second term despite wide-ranging actions — including his push to control Greenland and the military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — according to the AP.
About 56% of Americans said Trump had “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries.
Priorities and the stability question
About half of U.S. adults said Trump was mostly focusing on the wrong priorities one year into his second term. Approximately 2 in 10 said he was mostly focused on the right priorities, another 2 in 10 said it had been about an even mix, and 14% said they had no opinion.
Trump’s overall approval has moved little throughout both his terms — a pattern the AP noted mirrors a broader trend in presidential polling. Gallup data dating to the 1950s show approval ratings have grown less variable over time. Trump entered his first term in 2017 with 42% approval and left with nearly the same figure, according to the AP. Former President Joe Biden entered office with higher approval numbers than Trump has ever received, but those numbers fell rapidly during Biden’s first two years before remaining low for the remainder of his term, the AP reported.
The AP-NORC poll of 1,203 adults was conducted Jan. 8–11, 2026, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.