Poll: Majority of Voters Say ‘Not Enough Focus on Domestic Issues’
President Donald Trump’s approval rating continued to slide into negative territory in October, a net -24.4 point swing from his all-time high and -5.8 point swing from July. The survey was conducted by BIG DATA POLL as part of the Public Polling Project for Fall 2025.
The quarterly national survey finds 44.9% of registered voters approve of the way he is handling his job as president, down from 48.3% over the summer. Meanwhile, a second term high of 51.2% disapprove of his handling of the presidency, up slightly from 48.7% with 3.8% undecided.
In July, the Public Polling Project also conducted the Registered Voter Economic Confidence Index and gauged views about the Trump Administration’s focus on foreign affairs and domestic issues. The findings provide insight into the president’s declining approval ratings.
By far, President Trump is getting his worst marks on his handling of inflation and cost of living. Only 37.5% approve and a whopping 57.9% disapprove. Voters are more evenly divided on his handling of the economy and jobs overall, though he still is underwater by 4.0% points. Even on foreign policy and national security, an arena in which he has had a slew of recent successes, voters are split at 47.2%. Immigration and border security remains the president’s strongest issue.
“Fair or not, regardless of how many successes abroad a president might experience, it will never outweigh the importance of domestic issues in the minds of voters when they feel they’re not being sufficiently addressed,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris said. “Voters will never put their own economic concerns after the concerns of other nations.”
“There is a strong perception right now among significant numbers of the president’s own voters that the administration is not giving enough of their attention to domestic economic issues.”
When asked, 51.9% of voters said the Trump Administration is “too focused on foreign affairs” and “not enough on domestic issues”. That includes 38.5% of Trump 2024 voters, 54.7% of independents, and 37.2% of Republicans. Even a plurality (45.9%) of white evangelicals—often cited as core allies of Israel on the right—say they want the administration to pivot to a domestic agenda.
That compares to just 18.1% who said the administration is “too focused on domestic issues” and “not enough on foreign affairs”. Thirty-percent (30.0%) flat said the administration’s “focus has been balanced and is just about right”.
The spread between those who say the country is headed in the right direction and those who say it’s off on the wrong track widened slightly, inching more negative into double digits after being in single digits for months prior to July. Only 36.9% now say the country is headed in the right direction, down from 39.4%. Meanwhile, 52.2% say it’s off on the wrong track, up from 50.8%, and 10.9% are undecided.
Prior to this month, this notoriously negative gauge had demonstrated a positive trend under the second Trump Administration.
Methodology
The Public Polling Project conducted by BIG DATA POLL interviewed 2,984 registered voters nationwide from October 26 to October 28, 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.
