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Trump Has Reason to Be Excited About These Polls

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  April 16, 2025 6:00 PM

Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media have loved to discuss to death the polls that show some less than good news for President Donald Trump for his second term, while now former President Joe Biden finished his term as a particularly unpopular president, and his legacy will likely reflect as much. There is reason for Trump to celebrate, though, not only when it comes to polls reflecting a positive approval rating, but also the amount of Americans who are part of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

The NBC News poll about the amount of Americans who consider themselves part of MAGA was actually released last month, as we covered at the time. Among the poll's findings was that 36 percent of registered voters say they consider themselves to be "a supporter of the MAGA Movement," the highest number since the question was first asked in April 2023. 

Such findings weren't included in the NBC write-up at the time. Rather that focused on the record low approval ratings the Democratic Party consistent finds itself in. But it was included in the poll itself and others, like Ryan Girdusky, pointed it out over X. 

About a month later, however, NBC News put out another write-up focused on those MAGA numbers. "Polling shows growing number of Republicans identify with the MAGA movement," read a headline from April 14. 

As the new write-up highlighted about the March poll results, as well as what the MAGA movement findings were in previous polls:

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As President Donald Trump nears the 100-day mark of his second term, recent polling from NBC News shows how he has consolidated the Republican Party not just around himself, but also around his broader “Make America Great Again” movement.  

Thirty-six percent of registered voters identified themselves as MAGA supporters in the March NBC News poll. It’s a significant increase from past NBC News polling — up from 23% of respondents in a merged sample of all of NBC News’ polling across 2023 and 27% of respondents in a merged sample of NBC News’ 2024 polling.  

The overall share is powered by the 71% of Republicans who now call themselves MAGA supporters.

NBC News’ polling already showed signs of a shift afoot between the beginning of the 2024 presidential primaries and the final weeks before Election Day, as the GOP consolidated around Trump. In January 2024, days after Trump won nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, just 20% of registered voters said they aligned with the MAGA movement. But in NBC News’ combined polling in October and early November, that number had ticked up to 29%.  

That so many Republicans consider themselves MAGA supporters is not surprising, but still noteworthy. While Democrats may be in disarray, and certainly were over the 2024 presidential election campaign, polls show in this way and in others that Republicans are more united around Trump. 

It's not just Trump and the MAGA movement receiving crucial support from fellow Republicans, though. Trump beat then Vice President Kamala Harris last November so handily in part thanks to the tremendous gains he made among key demographics, including young men. That's showing up in this poll as well. "There’s also been a similar shift among college-educated men, from 21% in 2024 to 37% in March — also a 16-point increase," the poll's write-up mentioned.

The resurfacing of such poll findings became a trending topic over X this week. Trump also weighed in over Truth Social late on Monday night, emphasizing he was "not, at all, surprised!!!"

That poll was conducted March 7-11 with 1,000 registered votes and a margin of of error of plus 3.1 percentage points. 

Trump has had more reasons to celebrate, though, and with more recent polls. On Tuesday, the Daily Mail reported on a poll they did with J.L. Partners, revealing that Trump has a 54 percent approval rating. It's a tie for his all-time highest approval rating. 

The write-up from the Daily Mail emphasized that the tariffs Trump announced earlier this month do not appear to have affected the president's approval ratings:

President Donald Trump's topsy-turvy tariff implementation didn't put his poll numbers in a tailspin. 

...

'For all the events of the past ten days, we find the President's approval rating unchanged and now at its joint highest ever,' said pollster James Johnson. 

During those 10 days, Trump planned to implement across-the-board tariffs and higher reciprocal tariffs on most countries.

But he changed his mind, only implementing 10 percent tariffs and putting the higher tariffs on hold, except for ones aimed at China. 

That created drops and then a spike on the stock market - but polling showed most voters were unfazed. 

'Among the noise and criticism, there does seem to be a simple truth: the more coverage there is of Trump's changes, the more voters reward him for what they see as the pace and purpose that many of them voted for,' Johnson explained. 

The new DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners polling was conducted between April 10 and April 14, the days directly following Trump's tariff turnaround last week.

This is not the only poll to highlight a lack of issues created for Trump with his tariffs. Cygnal's poll was released last Tuesday, which showed Trump holding steady at about an even approval rating, at 47 percent. This was unchanged from last month's poll. Although it was released the day before Trump's announcement from last week about a pause on tariffs, Cygnal President Brent Buchanan spoke to Townhall about what such an announcement meant for Trump's support. "Trump's base of support is both durable and resilient. Even amid the tariffs announcement and subsequent pauses today, his base has stuck with him and support remains higher than the peak of his first term," Buchanan shared last week. 

The write-up pointed to more good news we've seen for Trump from other polls for the start of his second term, including where his support lies:

Trump remains the most popular with the youngest set of voters. 

Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 gave Trump the highest approval rating - at 64 percent. 

Every other age group put his approval rating in the 50s.

A CBS News/YouGov poll from February, as we covered at the time, also found that Trump was doing particularly well with young people. 

That Daily Mail/J.L. Partners poll was conducted April 10-14 with 1,002 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. The 54 percent approval rating was also a trending topic over X this week. 

With that poll included, Trump has a 46.9-50.3 percent approval rating, per RealClearPolling. In other words, he has room to grow, but his overall net approval of -3.4 is certainly better than the -18.1 net approval Biden finished with, as RCP had him with just a 39 percent approval rating and 57.1 percent disapproving. 

Polling numbers isn't the only narrative we've heard from desperate Democrats and their allies in the media, though. Democrats love to claim that those who voted for Trump are regretting it. Not so much, as CNN's Harry Enten highlighted earlier on Wednesday on the network. That too was another trending topic over X. 

As host John Berman asked about Trump voters regretting their vote, Enten acknowledged that "this is the big question, right? I hear all these stories, all these articles, 'oh the Trump voters, they regret what they did back in 2024.' I'm here to tell you, uh-uh, very few of them regret what they did back in 2024. What are we talking about? Trump voters looking back at 2024. We got a new poll out. The poll was conducted this month. What percentage would change their vote to a different candidate? We're talking just 2 percent, just 2 percent. That's not even a wide spot on the road," he made clear. 

Enten also later shared that a redo of the 2024 election would likely warrant the same results. "The bottom line is, for all this talk of Trump voters regretting their vote, in the numbers, it really just doesn't show up," he added. 

Scott Jennings, also of CNN, shared the clip of Enten's remarks with a particular message for cable news panelists, adding in parenthesis that "you know who are."