How has President Trump done over the course of 2025?
For some voters, 2025 was a great year for the country. For others, it was a depressing, unaffordable slog. And one person definitely regretted his vote.
The Times asked voters whom we have followed over the last 18 months just what they thought of the last year.
Almost everyone agreed that the year was big and chaotic. After that, they splinter in some interesting and surprising ways.
“I see steady progress.”
Jaime Escobar Jr., 47, Roma, Texas
The mayor of the small border town of Roma, Jaime Escobar Jr. said he believes Mr. Trump has made strides in his first year in office to control border crossings.
Mr. Escobar, a longtime Democrat, voted for Mr. Trump after years of what he described as chaos at the border.
“I think Trump is doing a good job,” he said. “He just needs more time.”
When it comes to the economy, he said he is confident that Mr. Trump can improve affordability if Republicans can keep control of Congress after the midterms. Gas prices, he said, have already come down.
“I see steady progress,” Mr. Escobar said.
Mr. Escobar is not without criticism.
“I’ve always been very pro-law enforcement,” he said. But he added that he is troubled by some of the videos and photographs of ICE agents aggressively detaining migrants. He hopes to see more humane treatment of migrants with long ties to the United States who do not have criminal records.
— Edgar Sandoval
“The only thing that matters to him is himself.”
Erwin McKone, 55, Flint, Mich.
Erwin McKone, who works in agribusiness sales, voted for Mr. Trump last November, a bit reluctantly. He describes himself as a moderate who felt Democrats had failed to control the southern border.
But he is alarmed over Mr. Trump’s actions in 2025.
Mr. McKone said he thinks the administration’s approach to border security has been needlessly draconian.
His top concerns, however, are the president’s rhetoric, narcissism and the transactional nature of his politics, he said. “The only thing that matters to him is himself,” he said. “And then maybe the people who pay the bills.”
He worries about what the years ahead may bring. “There are times that I struggle to remain positive when I look at this administration and how the United States and our Constitution and Congress and the Senate are changing,” he said.
— Ernesto Londoño
“He’s got answers, and he’s got direction, and he’s more of a leader.”
Matthew Dugie, 60, Mesa, Ariz.
Matthew Dugie, a union construction worker, agonized over his vote before casting his ballot for Kamala Harris. He regretted it almost immediately.
“I wasted a vote,” he said.
He is a rare voter — a 2020 Trump supporter who voted for Ms. Harris in 2024.
But he is largely happy with Mr. Trump’s approach to his second term. He gives Mr. Trump credit for imposing tariffs to try to bring back domestic manufacturing, and said he feels that a bold chief executive is now running the country.
“He’s got answers, and he’s got direction, and he’s more of a leader,” Mr. Dugie said.
He disagrees with Mr. Trump’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and does not want to see the United States start a war in Venezuela.
But he has plenty of construction work from hospitals and data centers, and says his retirement account is up about 11 percent since last year.
And this year, he said, he even indulged in a four-day trip to Las Vegas.
— Jack Healy
“I think it’s going to be a long three years.”
Sharon Reed, 78, with her husband, Bob Reed, 79, Central Pennsylvania
For Bob and Sharon Reed, both retired schoolteachers, the issue with Mr. Trump all along has been less about what he plans to do and more about how he does it.
They are Republicans, and mostly agree with the president’s goals, like shrinking the government and strengthening the border. That is why they voted for him, with reservations.
But it’s Mr. Trump’s bulldozing style that is their problem: the scale and speed of his actions, the rhetoric that accompanies them and the turmoil that inevitably follows.
The Reeds, for instance, support weeding out government fraud, but Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency “didn’t go after the fraud,” Ms. Reed said. “They just fired people.”
They support strengthened immigration enforcement, but not ICE’s aggressive tactics that meant “some innocent people get swept up with it,” Mr. Reed said.
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Their list goes on.
Still Mr. Reed is, on balance, pleased enough. “I think he’s trying to work for the betterment of the country,” Mr. Reed said.
Ms. Reed is not so pleased.
She does not regret her vote, given her options, but she just keenly hopes for better choices the next time around.
“I think it’s going to be a long three years,” she said.
— Campbell Robertson
“The president is always blaming Biden.”
Veronica McCloud, 63, Charleston, S.C.
Though she voted for Kamala Harris, Veronica McCloud believed Mr. Trump deserved support from all Americans and she was willing to give him a chance.
Ms. McCloud, a retired English teacher, said she even found herself agreeing with some of the president’s decisions. But his manner was the issue. Ms. McCloud, for instance, supported trimming government waste, but thought the widespread firing of federal employees was callous and reckless. She believes in securing the country’s borders and deporting criminals, but the images of ICE agents aggressively rounding up immigrants, including children, left her heartbroken.
“So much fighting and pointing fingers,” she said. “And the president is always blaming Biden, always looking backward.”
“I am disappointed, particularly with the way he speaks to women and women of color,” she added. “The name calling has to stop.”
She said she has been most affected by the rising cost of food. She rarely buys beef now.
“Going to the grocery store is miserable,” she said. “I find myself going aisle by aisle and saying ‘I will wait on this for the next paycheck.’”
— Audra D. S. Burch
“I wish we could have a president that is doing what Trump is doing, but one that is not so divisive.”
Perry Hunter, 56, Sellersburg, Ind.
Perry Hunter, a high school teacher who voted for Mr. Trump, has been pleased with nearly all of the president’s decisions, including the aggressive way he has handled deportations, his demolition of the East Wing of the White House and his attacks on Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying drugs.
And he said that Democrats just don’t want to agree with Mr. Trump on anything.
“If he said drinking Drano was bad for you, there would be people going on to drink Drano, just to prove him wrong,” he said.
But he doesn’t like that Mr. Trump has been rude — especially when commenting about the killing of the filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.
“I wish we could have a president that is doing what Trump is doing,” he said, “but one that is not so divisive.”
— Juliet Macur
“Not every aspect was horrible.”
Annabelle Collins, 37, Mercedes, Texas
Annabelle Collins, an independent who supported Ms. Harris, has mixed feelings about the past year. “Not every aspect was horrible,” she said.
As a Venezuelan immigrant who moved to the United States as a child, she is against the Trump administration’s tactics for detaining undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for decades.
“There has to be a better way to do those things,” Ms. Collins, 37, said.
At the same time, she said, President Trump’s aggressive immigration policy has helped her husband, who is a border patrol agent.
“I know he’s in a safer place,” she said.
— Christina Morales
“It’s been slow change.”
Charles Vaughters, 25, Laramie, Wyo.
Charles Vaughters, a Marine veteran and college student who considers himself conservative, says that the country has improved — but just “marginally.”
“It’s been slow change,” he said. “It takes a long time to steer the ship.”
He said Mr. Trump could do a better job at deporting migrants who arrived in the country illegally and that ICE “needs to ramp up its numbers.”
He also does not support Mr. Trump’s decision in September to continue H-1B visas, meant for foreign workers who fill specialized roles, even with a new $100,000 fee per worker.
He thinks the program should be ended. His friends who are computer science majors, he said, are worried about finding jobs.
“I don’t think Trump’s ever going to do that,” he said, “because he has a lot of friends in big tech who benefit immensely from that program.”
— Juliet Macur
“His policies have impacted my quality of life. Everything costs more.”
Clifford Eugene, 74, Lacombe, La.
For Clifford Eugene, a longtime moderate Democrat, Mr. Trump’s second term has affected his life in deeply personal ways.
He holds Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers responsible for the historic 43-day government shutdown that resulted in his two sons being furloughed from their federal contracting jobs. Though retired and living on a fixed income, Mr. Eugene and his wife helped their sons during the shutdown. The rising cost of living, he said, added another layer of anxiety. To cut costs, the couple pared down their groceries and reduced some of their leisure travel.
“I honestly think the country is worse today than it was before he took office. His first term was not as bad as the second term,” he said. “I do not know of anything that this administration has done to the betterment of Americans.”
— Audra D. S. Burch
“We don’t really know what to expect as citizens.”
Sam Consiglio, 22, Seattle
When asked what words sum up the first year of the second Trump term, Sam Consiglio did not hesitate.
“Uncertainty, confusion and disorderly,” said Ms. Consiglio, 22, a moderate Democrat who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. “In the past year, we don’t really know what to expect as citizens.”
On top of that, she added, “a lot of the problems that we had a year ago are still problems today,” citing the price of groceries.
But the tone from the White House troubles her most. To Ms. Consiglio, a president should be a steadying force: “One who calms those nerves,” she said.
Mr. Trump’s behavior, however, is “very different from what you would expect from a president.”
— Kurt Streeter
“The job market out there is just really, really bad.”
Thien Doan, 36, Orange, Calif.
For Thien Doan, there is no doubt that life feels much worse than it was a year ago. Shortly after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Doan, a staunch Democrat, lost his job as a software engineer with a company that produces video game competitions. To save money, he rented out his condo and moved in with family. It took him about six months to land a new position, but he still has not moved back into his own home.
“The job market out there is just really, really bad.”
— Laurel Rosenhall
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