A stunning new NBC News poll found that President
Donald Trump is still more popular than both his 2024 general election opponent,
Kamala Harris, and California Governor
Gavin Newsom (D), the two frontrunners to secure their party’s presidential nomination in
2028.
The
survey of 1,000 registered voters, which had a 3.1% margin of error and was conducted between February 27 and March 3, found that 41% of respondents had a positive and 53% had a negative view of Trump, putting Trump 12 points below water. That was noticeably better than both Harris (34%-51%) and Newsom (27%-45%).
Similarly, the GOP (37%-51%) polled significantly better than the Democratic Party (30%-52%). In fact, the latter was rated the second least popular figure or institutions whose popularity was measured by the poll, behind Immigration and Customs Enforcement (38%-56%) and Artificial Intelligence (26%-46%), but ahead of the Islamic Republic of Iran (8%-51%).
The most popular people and things were
Pope Leo XIV (42%-8%),
Stephen Colbert (35%-25%), Secretary of State
Marco Rubio (34%-41%), Sanctuary cities (33%-43%), Vice President
JD Vance (38%-49%), and Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Still, Democrats came out on top on the question of which party voters would like to see in control of Congress after the midterms, with 50% expressing a preference for team blue and 44% indicating they’d like Republicans to hold on. That’s a slight improvement for the GOP, which trailed the Democrats by eight in October.
Trump’s net approval rating also ticked upward from -12 (43%-55%) in October to -10 (44%-54%) now.