Majority of Americans approve of Trump, with senior citizens the only outliers

CV NEWS FEED // A poll shows that a majority of American voters approve of the job performance of President-elect Donald Trump two weeks after the Republican decisively won back the White House in what has been hailed as the greatest political comeback in American history.

Furthermore, the survey shows a remarkable turnaround for the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president, who had ended his first term just under four years ago with only a third of Americans approving of his job performance.

The Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) / Harris poll of registered voters found that 54% indicated approval of the president-elect, compared to 40% who expressed disapproval. The remaining six percent neither approved nor disapproved.

In January 2021, the month Trump left office and was succeeded by now-outgoing President Joe Biden, Trump had a job approval rating of a record-low 34%, according to a Gallup poll – a full 20 points lower than it is today.

During Trump’s first term, his highest job approval rating, per Gallup, was 49%.

As The Hill noted, this month’s Harvard / Harris poll found that 91% of Republicans, 49% – just under half – of independent voters, and a surprising 22% of Democrats currently approve of Trump, despite corporate media outlets running negative stories about some of his cabinet nominees.

Meanwhile, “almost three-quarters of Democrats and about 40 percent of independents said they disapprove of the president-elect,” The Hill added.

When the poll’s results are broken down into six age cohorts, the only group in which more voters disapprove of Trump than approve of him is senior citizens.

A “majority of those ages 18 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44 and 45 to 54” and a plurality of “55-to-64-year-olds” approve of Trump, “while a slight majority of those ages 65 and older disapprove,” reported The Hill.

The new results defy decades of conventional American political wisdom, which assumed that younger voters lean heavily Democratic while older voters back Republicans. 

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This realignment of young voters, both male and female, trending to the right, while older voters moving left, was also reflected in 2024 presidential election exit polls.

According to CNN’s exit polling, while voters aged 18-29 went for failed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, she only won the group by 11 points. 

Four years earlier, the Democratic presidential ticket won voters 29 or younger by 24 points – over twice as much. The shift means young voters moved 13 points to the right from 2020 to 2024.

At the same time, Trump and Harris tied among senior voters in 2024. In 2020, Trump won them by five points over Biden.

While much attention has been paid to the groundswell of young men trending toward Trump over the past four years, the president-elect has also gained significant ground among young women, despite Harris targeting women throughout her campaign with messages on the issue of abortion.

In 2020, the Biden-Harris ticket won men under 30 by 11 points and women under 30 by a landslide margin of 35 points, per CNN.

This month, Trump eked out a two-point win among young men, and Harris, while heavily focusing on winning the votes of young women, won them by a significantly reduced margin of 24 points.

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