President Trump appears to be losing some ground with the overall public on his top issue — immigration — even as his base remains steadfastly behind him, a new poll shows.
More Americans are souring on Trump’s handling of the situation, with now 44% approving and 56% disapproving, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.
That approval rating is down significantly from March, when he had 54% backing him and 46% disapproving of his administration’s actions. Even in June, his rating on the issue stood at a dead even 50%.
Immigration and border security were top concerns during the 2024 campaign cycle, and Trump had rapidly moved to restore order to the border after winning re-election.
Last month, there were a paltry 9,306 encounters between federal agents and migrants at the southwest land border, down dramatically from a peak of 301,981 encounters during the Biden administration in December 2023, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.
More than 64% of the latest respondents concluded that Trump’s policies resulted in illegal border crossings plummeting. But there appear to be lingering concerns about his aggressive approach to deportation.
Now that Trump has quickly stemmed the border crisis, the public appears to think his tactics are going too far, with 54% describing his approach as too tough, compared to 18% who said it’s not tough enough and 29% seeing it as about right.
Former President Joe Biden had long been dogged by abysmal ratings from voters for being too soft on immigration.
Additionally, there has been a growing perception that the Trump administration has been prioritizing the deportation of people who aren’t dangerous criminals (56%) rather than dangerous criminals (44%).
Polls have long pegged immigration and border security to be Trump’s crucial political issue. CBS News/YouGov is one of several polls that has indicated Trump’s ratings on immigration are softening.
Still, the US adults sampled said immigration matters “a lot” to them in their assessment of his performance, eclipsing inflation (56%), the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (56%) and the Jeffrey Epstein case (36%).
Trump has signaled plans to recalibrate his approach to immigration and work to mitigate the impact of his deportation policies on farms and the service sector.
This reportedly includes plans to fast-track visas for foreign laborers.
Despite the lower marks from the public on immigration, Trump’s approval from Republicans remains very strong.
A whopping 89% of Republicans approve of his presidency overall.
The CBS News/YouGov survey sampled 2,343 US adults from July 16-18 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
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