President Donald Trump is still the most trusted man to watch out for Americans’ 401(k) and pension plans, according to a new poll surveying voter sentiment six months into his presidency.
Trump and Republicans are in the driver’s seat when it comes to the economy and money matters, an enviable position to be in after enduring months of mercurial news coverage about Trump’s MAGA reforms in government.
Asked which party they trust more to manage the economy, voters sided with Republicans by an 8-point margin; on containing runaway inflation, voters gave a similar 6-point advantage to the GOP.
The results contradict earlier polling by Napolitan News Survey, showing Democrats narrowing the gap among likely voters as both parties jostle for the upper hand ahead of the 2026 elections. There, the minority party pulled about even with Republicans on the economy (+1) while receiving a +4 lead on handling inflation.
Wednesday’s numbers, however, mark a return to consistent findings giving Republicans a roughly 10-point lead on both issues, which the same pollster repeatedly found over the past several months.
The surge in GOP approval coincides with historic trade deals negotiated by the Trump administration.
On Tuesday, the president announced that he would be pausing a planned 50% tariff on European Union nations, causing stock markets to rally. Similar deals were reached just weeks earlier with the U.K. and China while administration officials negotiate the final contours of new trade agreements.
Pluralities of voters continue to rank inflation (29%) and the economy (25%) as their top two concerns, Conservative Brief reported, underscoring the importance of GOP dominance on both fronts. Trump, who is term-limited, will be relying on positive voter sentiment about House Republicans in order to keep a functional majority for his final two years in office.
Overall, voters sided with Republicans over Democrats 42%-41% when asked which party cares about the issues that matter most to voters.
Immigration, the third-most pressing issue among voters, is an area where Trump and Republicans shine, too. Last week, Marquette University polling gave Trump a +32 score among voters asked about his mass deportation agenda.
At the same time, longtime Democratic voters are disgusted with their own party’s leadership, other polls have shown, threatening to depress anti-Trump turnout next year.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released a poll in May showing that only about one-third of Democrats have a “very optimistic” or even “somewhat optimistic” view of their party. That’s down sharply from nearly a year ago, when in July 2024, about 6 in 10 Democrats said they saw their party making progress.
President Trump came into office the second time with a hatched plan to not repeat his 2018 loss of the House majority, a phenomenon that traditionally affects the party in power.
He called donors days after the November election with an audacious plan to raise $1 billion ahead of the 2026 midterms, and last week his political operation reported raising $600 million already, putting it well on track to defend swing-district House seats that have proved critical to pushing his ambitious agenda through the chamber.
