The latest poll shows that most Americans say they are ready to support the second term of President elect Donald Trump, despite his controversial agenda during the election campaign.
Specifically, CNBC's National Economic Survey found that 54% of Americans are "willing and prepared to support" Trump as president. This is two percentage points lower than when he took office in 2016. At the same time, about 41% of people feel uncomfortable, an increase of 5 percentage points from 2016. Therefore, his net approval rating for this term has decreased.
In 2016, more people said, 'I'm not sure,' and adopted a wait-and-see attitude, "said Jay Campbell, a partner at Hart Research, the polling firm responsible for the survey." These numbers have dropped by half or even more... People now know what Donald Trump will bring, and their attitudes are relatively clear
The survey was conducted on 1000 people across the United States from December 5th to 8th. The error margin is ± 3.1%.
Economic prospects
On the whole, most Americans believe that the economic outlook of Trump 2.0 is more optimistic than that of the first term of office. More than half (51%) of people said they expect their personal financial situation to improve, which is 10 percentage points higher than when he was elected in 2016; 51% of respondents also stated that they expect the US economy to improve, up 5 percentage points from 2016.
However, the proportion of people who believe that the economic prospect of the second term will be worse has also increased, which indicates that the current American view of Trump is more polarized.
46% of the American public expects the economy to improve next year, an increase of 9 percentage points from October last year. Meanwhile, 33% of people believe that the economy will get worse, an increase of 16 percentage points.
The survey's pollster Micah Roberts said, "Trump entered his second term with a more pessimistic outlook on the current economy, but people's attitudes towards the future are more hopeful
As Biden is about to step down, as many as 73% of people believe that the economy is average or poor.
Economic agenda
The latest survey also found that 60% of people believe that deploying troops at the border to prevent the entry of illegal drugs and people should be the top priority for the new government in 2025. Another 13% stated that this task should still be completed later in the term. Only 24% of people directly oppose the proposal, including 51% of Democrats, 12% of Independents, and 3% of Republicans.
Most Americans also support reducing personal taxes, increasing the expulsion of undocumented immigrants, reducing the size of the government, mining more oil on federal land, and reducing taxes and regulation of enterprises.
Regarding Trump's proposal to pardon those convicted during the January 6th protests, the majority (50%) expressed opposition, with only 43% supporting the measure. In addition, support for tariffs is lukewarm, with 27% fully supporting tariffs and 24% stating that they can be implemented later in the term. 42% of the respondents expressed opposition.
Investment choices
According to the above poll, 40% of Americans said that now is a good time to invest in stocks, and 27% said that now is not the time, which is the highest rise in optimism since 2019.
From last quarter to the past three and a half years, Americans' views on the stock market have been from neutral to extremely negative. Therefore, this is a huge shift, driven by Trump's victory. Compared to August, their optimism about whether now is a good time to invest in the stock market has increased by 56 percentage points.
In addition, the survey also found that although cryptocurrency may be the hottest topic on Wall Street at present, it is not the case among the general public, at least not yet.
According to polls, only 13% of the public owns cryptocurrency, and 15% believe it is currently the best investment. Since the survey last raised this question in 2022, this number has increased by 4 percentage points, but when it comes to the best investments currently available, cryptocurrency lags far behind real estate, stocks, gold, and even savings accounts.
Only 7% of Americans said they would accept cryptocurrency wages, but another 22% said they might accept cryptocurrency wages one day in the future. Just over three fifths (61%) of people say they will never accept cryptocurrency wages.