WASHINGTON — Nearly half of registered voters say President Trump’s economic policies are doing more harm than good, according to a blistering new poll that also shows an overwhelming majority blame the Republican for current economic conditions.
A plurality (46%) of respondents to the Fox News survey said they had been personally hurt by the Trump White House’s economic actions, while 39% said the administration had made no difference and just 15% said the policies had helped.
The findings are similar to a December 2024 poll, in which 47% said the Biden administration had negatively affected them financially, while only 17% said the Democrat’s actions had a positive impact.
Trump’s approval rating in the poll has slumped to 41%, down eight percentage points from its high point in March of this year, with 58% disapproving — up seven percentage points from the March survey.
The poll was released as the White House and congressional Republicans grapple with how to respond to affordability concerns following sweeping Democratic victories in off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia earlier this month.
“What we’re not going to do is tell the American people that they don’t know how they’re feeling, which is what the Biden administration did,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“They said it was a vibecession, you don’t know how good you have it,” he added. “We are working every day to get these prices down.”
Throughout the 2024 election cycle, the economy had consistently polled as one of Trump’s top issues.
But now it has turned into a liability that could doom Republicans in the 2026 midterms and 2028 race for the White House.
Voters also say Trump is more responsible for current economic conditions than Biden by a near-two-to-one margin (62%-32%) — a figure that includes 42% of Republicans and those who pulled the lever for the 47th president this past November.
More than three-quarters (76%) of voters also rated the state of the economy as “fair” or “poor” — compared to 70% who did so at the end of Biden’s term and 67% who said the same this past July.
Democrats have mounted an aggressive messaging campaign to attack the president’s handling of the economy, including the imposition of sweeping tariffs on imports from dozens of countries.
The Fox poll found voters think Democrats have a better plan than Republicans for making things more affordable (53%-43%), raising wages (55%-41%), reducing the cost of healthcare (59%-38%), and creating jobs (49%-47%).
“I think we are going to see a substantial acceleration in the economy in the first, second quarter [of next year],” Bessent predicted Sunday ” think 2026, thanks to President Trump’s signature plans, is going to be a great year for working Americans, for the markets.”
There has been some good economic news for the Trump administration, with GDP growing 3.8% in the second quarter of this year and a higher-than-expected 119,000 jobs added in September.
The Fox News poll sampled 1,005 registered voters between Nov. 14-17 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
It was conducted by the Democratic-leaning Beacon Research firm and the Republican-leaning Shaw & Company Research.
