Voter Frustration With Foreign Affairs Focus Hits New High Amid Domestic Unrest
One year into his second term, approval of President Donald Trump has declined as voter frustration over policy direction hardens opinions. In January, 44.8% of registered voters say they approve of the job the president is doing and 51.9% disapprove. The survey was conducted by BIG DATA POLL as part of the Public Polling Project for January 2026.
The percentage of registered voters who are undecided has remained below 5%—now at just 3.1%—for three straight months, indicating a solidifying of public opinion. The president went into the election against Kamala Harris in 2024 with a 7.4% positive retrospective approval rating, marking this month’s reading as a net -14.2% swing.
“For months now, voters have told us and the administration that they were too focused on foreign affairs and not enough on domestic issues,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris, said in a statement. “Despite alternative explanations we have heard, the evidence clearly suggests the pivot away from the domestic agenda resulted in declining approval for the president and a lead for Democrats on the Generic Ballot.”
“It’s conclusive.”
The president entered office this year with an astonishingly high 55.5% approval rating, with only 37.4% disapproval. His numbers fell but remained fairly strong until May, and collapsed after the administration pivoted to foreign policy and the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites on behalf of Israel. His approval rating bottomed out in late October before recovering somewhat toward the end of the year. Though the president’s approval rating improved slightly in December, the Intensity Index remained fairly negative (-14.1) and has now widened to -18.6.
Last year, motivated by repeated concerns raised by voters during interviews, BIG DATA POLL created the White House Policy Focus Tracker. It directly gauges voters’ views towards the administration’s, and indirectly measures the where voters prefer the administration to focus their efforts.
In January, the percentage of voters who say the administration is too focused on foreign policy hit a new high at 56.3%. Only 14.7% say they are too focused on domestic issues, and just 29.0% say the focus has been balanced. This should be particularly concerning for the administration and Republicans given the top five most important voting issues in our 2026 Rank Distribution for Most Important Issues are all domestic issues.
As the president tries to pivot back to the home front in the new year, he will likely find he has significantly diminished political capital. Voters now give the president fairly poor marks even on issues once considered his bread and butter. The economy and jobs (-3.7), immigration and border security (+1.0), crime and safety (-2.8)—all issues on which he previously enjoyed remarkably resilient approval ratings—appear posed to turn into serious challenges heading into November.
Until recent high profile shootings involving federal agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Democrats and allies were free to organize obstructionist and often violent protests without pushback from the administration or Republicans in Congress. Over that time, the president’s approval on immigration and border security has cratered.
The Direction of Country Index starts the year with 36.3% saying the country is headed in the right direction, essentially unchanged from the year-end reading at 36.1%. Meanwhile, 52.5% say it’s off on the wrong track and 11.2% are undecided, marginally improved from the prior month’s 53.6% and 10.3, respectively. That marks a slightly improved spread at -16.2 versus -17.5 last month.
It’s worth noting, however, just before the country elected President Trump in November 2024, only 27.7% said the country was headed in the right direction, while 60.4% said it was off on the wrong track. The -32.3 Direction of County spread was cut in half during the president’s first year in office.
Methodology
The Public Polling Project conducted by BIG DATA POLL interviewed 3,280 registered voters nationwide from January 22 to January 24, 2026. Interviews conducted online are sourced through Lucid (CINT) and live-agent phone interviews including P2P SMS and text-to-online are sourced from either the L2 or 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 ±1.9% 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.
