New Polling Shows Mixed Public Sentiment on Trump's Deportation Policy and Job Approval

Two polls were reported on or around August 19, 2026, addressing different aspects of public opinion on President Trump. A POLITICO Poll found that about half of Americans surveyed, including nearly a quarter of Trump's 2024 voters, believe his mass deportation campaign is too aggressive. Separately, the Idaho Democratic Party cited polling indicating that Trump's job approval in Idaho had fallen to 49%, a state he won by more than 36 percentage points in the 2024 election. The two polls measure different questions and were conducted independently, with no shared methodology or dataset described in available materials. The POLITICO Poll addresses national sentiment specifically on immigration enforcement, while the Idaho-focused figure reflects general job approval within a single state. No polling firm, sample size, margin of error, or survey dates were specified in the available excerpts for either poll, limiting the ability to assess their reliability or compare them directly. Because these are two distinct polls on different subjects reported by sources with different institutional interests—a news outlet and a political party—their findings should not be conflated as reflecting a single trend. It remains unresolved how each poll was conducted, who commissioned them, and whether the results have been independently corroborated by other surveys. No official response from the Trump administration to either poll was included in the available reporting.