Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll

As President Donald Trump nears the completion of his first 100 days in office, respondents to a new national University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll express increasingly negative views of the American economy, while majorities say the country is on the “wrong track” and express unease over the state of the federal government’s system of checks and balances.

The nationwide survey of 1,000 respondents, conducted April 4-9, found that just one-quarter of those surveyed say the national economy is “excellent” or “good,” while 75% say the economy is “fair” or “poor.” The results indicate a downward trend in voter sentiment since an October 2024 UMass Poll found 32% of respondents with a positive view of the economy and 68% viewing it negatively.

“It’s three months into Donald Trump’s presidency and Americans are still waiting for evidence of the economic good times he promised on the campaign trail,” says Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll. “Today, prices remain high, the stock market has lost trillions of dollars in value, and economists are warning of an impending recession. Given the totality of this economic bad news, it is no surprise that American confidence in the economy is low, with 3 in 4 Americans rating the nation’s economic health as ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ and 6 in 10 viewing their own economic well-being in the same light. While there is still time for the Trump administration to help turn the economy around, for many Americans these first months point to an inauspicious start that does not bode well for the financial future of the nation.”

“Negative perceptions of the economy are shared by Americans of different genders, ages, incomes, education levels and races,” explains Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Although partisanship colors economic evaluations, with Republicans and Trump voters viewing the economy more favorably than Democrats and Harris voters, the differences aren’t as big as you might expect. In short, there is a pervasive sense that the national economy is struggling. The breadth of this shared viewpoint is a serious political problem for Republicans, who control all elected branches of the federal government and thus, for the time being, are seen as responsible for the nation’s economic stewardship.”

Rhodes looks to recent history – just last year – to show the electoral dangers these economic views create for Trump and his fellow Republicans.

“This overwhelmingly negative evaluation is very similar to how Americans graded the economy during the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency,” he says. “This is very bad news for President Trump. To a very large extent, presidencies live and die on the perceived state of the economy, as we recently saw with the denouement to Biden’s presidency and the defeat of Kamala Harris’ presidential aspirations. Unless things turn around, and quickly, Trump and congressional Republicans are likely to face the wrath of public opinion in the coming weeks and months.”

Nteta looks to the poll’s responses about individual pocketbook issues as concern for any potential economic turnaround.

“As Americans look ahead to the upcoming year, we find that many express skepticism that the nation’s economic outlook will improve,” he says. “Majorities of Americans believe that their taxes (54%), grocery prices (68%) and the cost of housing (68%) will increase this year, mirroring the low levels of consumer confidence in the overall health of the economy found in our poll. Americans are clearly not feeling great about the nation’s economy, and it remains to be seen if the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress can do anything to alleviate their concerns and right the nation’s economic ship.”
 

A Nation on the ‘Wrong Track’

The new University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll also found that a majority of Americans – 54% – think the country is on the wrong track, while only 35% of the nation thinks the country is going in the right direction.

“This is a substantial decline compared to surveys in March taken by other pollsters,” says Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “For example, a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll in early March showed 45% of voters thought the country was heading in the right direction. Not surprisingly, in our poll Trump voters are twice as likely to say the nation is going in the right direction (71%) than the nation as a whole, but it is telling that about one-third of them say the nation is on the wrong track or that they are not sure. This suggests that even among Trump voters there is considerable uncertainty early in the Trump presidency when partisan voters typically seem more ‘gung-ho’ about where the country is going.”

La Raja notes that there are marked demographic differences among the respondents’ views of the current state of the nation.

“Women especially believe the country is going in the wrong direction,” he says, “Fifty-nine percent of them feel this way, which is 11 points more than men who believe the country is headed the wrong way (48%). Non-whites also have a dim outlook of the nation – 67% of African Americans and 59% of Latinos see the country as on the wrong track. Some estimates indicate that Trump won roughly 45% of the Latino vote, so the fact that so many of them are dissatisfied with the direction of the country raises questions about whether they will stay in the Republican camp going forward.”

Nteta says that nearly 90 days into Trump’s second term there are two major issues on which he has bet both the nation’s immediate recovery and his presidency.

“The one issue on which Americans have rated President Trump highly has been immigration and Americans express optimism that under his presidency the problem of undocumented immigration will decrease,” Nteta says. “Two-thirds (66%) of Americans believe that undocumented immigration will decrease in the next year, and this sentiment will likely fuel and justify Trump’s continued strict response to the problem of undocumented immigration moving forward.”

As for the nation’s economic woes, Nteta points to Trump’s embrace of tariffs as its potential cure-all.

“For decades Trump has been a proponent of tariffs as a means to create jobs, lower prices and increase wages,” he says. “In the aftermath of his changes to the nation’s tariff policies, he and his advisors have made the claim that increased tariffs on the nation’s trade partners will jumpstart the nation’s stagnant economy and make the nation wealthy once again. On the role of tariffs as a catalyst in lowering prices, Americans, across gender, generational, educational, class, and racial groups, do not seem to be buying what the Trump administration is selling with a large majority of Americans (73%) believing that tariffs will increase the costs of goods and services. However, Americans are more open to the possibility that tariffs may increase the number of manufacturing jobs, as a plurality (41%) express this sentiment according to our poll. With an impending global trade war on the horizon, time will tell if Trump’s gamble on tariffs will result in a return to the economic prosperity that many Americans hope for. If not, the days of unified government under the control of the Republican Party may be over.”
 

Checks, Balances and ‘Normal Politics’

The University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll also asked respondents their views of the foundational system of checks and balances between our federal government’s three co-equal branches, what they consider “normal politics,” and whether they have felt more open expressing their political views during Trump’s second term.

“Americans are deeply polarized by party on what counts as ‘normal politics,’ and the split is most stark on central elements of the Trump playbook,” explains Alexander Theodoridis, associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Large majorities of Republicans describe politicians using their power to attack media that criticize them (67%), seeking the impeachment of judges who rule against their preferred policies (57%), or challenging the legitimacy of elections (68%) as ‘normal politics.’ Forty-two percent of Republicans describe a politician using their power to punish political opponents as ‘normal politics.’ Fewer than 2 in 10 Democrats describe any of these things as ‘normal.’ There is broad agreement, however, that things like politicians using their voice to boost support for their policies, endorsing like-minded candidates, and raising campaign funds are par for the course in politics, and that issuing pardons for family members is not normal.”

Rhodes says the results of the poll show Americans see a weakening of the checks and balances baked into our constitutional government, as well.

“The framers designed the Constitution in the belief that creating checks and balances prevents any branch from gaining too much power and threatening the rights of the American people,” he says. “Today, however, a strong majority of Americans (59%) believes that this system is not functioning well – 35% say checks and balances aren’t working too well, and another 24% believe they aren’t working well at all. The very strong implication, bolstered by other results from our poll indicating that Americans are worried about the erosion of their civil liberties, is that many Americans fear that the presidency has accumulated too much power, and that Congress and the federal courts are not doing enough to check presidential powers.”

Rhodes notes that partisan polarization is “a huge obstacle to the proper operation of checks and balances and the maintenance of the rule of law” in the U.S.

“While 58% of Americans believe that if the president refuses to comply with a Supreme Court ruling, Congress should impeach, convict and remove the president from office, there are very sharp partisan divisions on this matter,” he says. “Democrats overwhelmingly support this sentiment (87%), but only about one-quarter of Republicans (27%) do. In the current context, this sharp partisan divide increases the likelihood of constitutional crises in which the president defies the court and Congress is unwilling, or unable, to check this assertion of power.”

Back on “Main Street,” La Raja says that among average Americans the poll finds a greater willingness by Trump voters, specifically, to discuss politics in their day-to-day lives.

“Since Trump has returned to office, his voters feel much more comfortable expressing their political views,” he says. “Whether at work, with family and friends, neighbors, or on social media, they report feeling greater ease talking about their politics. Trump’s reelection – backed by millions of voters who also supported him – likely makes his voters feel empowered and validated. This sentiment is especially strong when talking with family and friends, as 44% of Trump voters say they feel more comfortable in this situation compared to just 25% of Harris voters. Perhaps the starkest divide between voters is at the workplace, where it is less typical to talk about politics. About one-third of Trump voters (34%) say they feel more comfortable expressing their views at work, compared to just 9% of Harris voters.”
 

Methodology

This University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll of 1,000 respondents nationally was conducted by YouGov April 4-9. YouGov interviewed 1,081 total respondents who were then matched down to a sample of 1,000 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race and education. The sampling frame is a politically representative “modeled frame” of U.S. adults, based upon the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and 2020 presidential vote.

The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined, and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education and region. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles.

The weights were then post-stratified on 2020 and 2024 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories), race (4-categories) and education (4-categories) to produce the final weight.

The margin of error of this poll is 3.7%.

Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll