Trump Approval Improves With No Benefit to Republicans
Republicans fell further behind Democrats on the Generic Ballot in the second week of December, despite the president’s approval improving marginally. The survey was conducted by BIG DATA POLL as part of the Public Polling Project for December 2025.
Initial support for Democrats rose from 43.6% at the start of December to 44.1%, while initial support for Republicans remained flat at 40.6%. With leaners, Democratic support rises to 46.7% and Republican support rises to a level below initial support for Democrats at 43.4%.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s approval rating rose overall and on the Economy / Jobs, though he remains underwater with poor marks on other key voting issues such as Cost of Living / Inflation. Overall, the percentage of voters who approve rose roughly 2 points to 47.0%, while the percentage of those who disapprove fell to 49.9%.
“Republicans who believed that President Donald Trump were weighing them down in the 2026 midterms are sadly mistaken,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris, said. “On that same token, they cannot expect to ride any increased approval rating for the president to a stronger performance next November.”
“Trump Coalition voters have never seen the Republican Party in the same light, and the hard truth is that they have done little to earn their trust, or to generate support and excitement among these voters.”
This week, a slightly larger 51.8% majority of voters still said the Trump Administration is “too focused on foreign affairs” and “not enough on domestic issues”, up from 50.6% at the start of the month and nearly identical to the 51.9% measured in late October. Three in 10 (29.9%) also said the administration’s “focus has been balanced and is just about right”, largely unchanged from the last two readings.
Methodology
The Public Polling Project conducted by BIG DATA POLL interviewed 3,004 registered voters nationwide from December 10 to December 12, 2025. Interviews conducted online are sourced through Lucid (CINT) and live-agent phone interviews including P2P SMS and text-to-online are sourced from the Aristotle National Voter File Database. Participants who opted for text-to-online were given 24 hours to complete the interview. Interview details plotted on maps can be reviewed by hovering and clicking on the locator pins. Results were weighted for sex, age, race and ethnicity, education, and geography. The overall sampling error is ±1.8% at a 95% confidence level. It is important to note that sampling errors for subgroups are higher. All BIG DATA POLL publicly conducted surveys are crowdfunded via the Public Polling Project, supplemented if necessary by BIG DATA POLL and are NOT funded by or affiliated with any candidate, campaign, committee, or political entity. Full and interactive crosstabs can be viewed on MarketSight.
