Polls: Significant majority of Americans approve Trump transition, young voters particularly optimistic

CV NEWS FEED // Multiple recent polls show that significantly more Americans approve of President-elect Donald Trump’s job performance during the presidential transition than disapprove.

CNN senior writer and political analyst Harry Enten compared two CBS News polls that asked voters if they approved of Trump’s transitions. One poll was taken in December 2016 after Trump won his first White House term, and the other was taken this month after Trump won his second. 

The November 2024 CBS poll found that 59% of adults in the United States approve “of the way Donald Trump is handling his presidential transition,” an 18-point advantage over the 41% who said they disapprove.

In the 2016 poll, respondents were only one point more likely to say they approved of Trump’s transition than to say they disapproved.

“The bottom line is this,” Enten said. “If eight years ago Americans were lukewarm on Donald Trump, at this particular point they’re giving him much more the benefit of the doubt.”

“A lot more Americans are in love with this transition,” the analyst continued. 

Enten said that Trump’s current approval rating, unlike the relatively frosty reception he received after his upset win in 2016, “much more meets the historical norms where normally presidents get that boost coming out of their victory.”

“And what we’re seeing here is Donald Trump’s presidential transition is getting a thumbs up, and dare I say two thumbs up from the American people,” Enten added.

“It’s not just that they like what Donald Trump added right now,” Enten said, referring to the president-elect’s recent flurry of nominations for his administration. “They’re optimistic for the future.”

“Eight years ago, 53% of Americans were ‘scared or concerned,’ the majority, toward the upcoming Trump term,” Enten pointed out, referring to the results of the December 2016 CBS News poll.

“Now, the shoe is on the other foot,” he emphasized. “Fifty-three percent of Americans are ‘excited or optimistic.’ It’s flipped-flopped.”

A further look at the CBS poll shows that majorities of almost every demographic cohort indicated that they approve of Trump’s current transition.

Notably, about two in three men (66%) approved of Trump’s second transition, as did a nearly identical 65% of all voters under 30.

These two results in particular are consistent with a widely held theory that young men, voting in record numbers for Trump, were pivotal to the Democratic Party’s wider-than-expected election loss earlier this month.

The CBS poll taken from November 19 to 22 also found that majorities of women (52%), voters between the ages of 30 and 44 (62%), voters between the ages of 45 and 64 (57%), and voters aged 65 and above (52%) approved of Trump’s transition.

Furthermore, the poll found that majorities of Republicans (95%), independent voters (56%), white voters (63%), and Hispanic voters (56%) also approved. 

While minorities of Democrats (22%) and black voters (36%) indicated their approval, the percentages were still significantly greater than the percentages of Democrats and black Americans who usually support Republican presidential candidates.

>> LAST WEEK: MAJORITY OF AMERICANS APPROVE OF TRUMP WITH SENIORS SOLE OUTLIERS <<

Similarly, a Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) / Harris poll released last week found that 54% of registered voters approved of Trump’s job performance, while just 40% disapproved. 

CatholicVote reported at the time: “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.”

Per the Harvard / Harris poll, a majority of registered voters between the ages of 18 and 24 and a majority of those between the ages of 25 and 34 – both age groups that have reliably voted for Democrats in recent election cycles – expressed approval of the Republican president-elect.

These “results defy decades of conventional American political wisdom, which assumed that younger voters lean heavily Democratic while older voters back Republicans,” CatholicVote added.