Deportation Policies Remain Trump’s Most Popular

There has been much discussion in the media of late about how Donald Trump is “slipping” in the polls, but one current administration policy remains popular — “deporting immigrants living in the United States”. That’s true even in the latest New York Times poll — which deserves its own analysis.

Trump Approval Generally. President Trump’s overall approval ratings in recent polls are all over the map.

For example, in a poll conducted for Insider Advantage by Trafalgar Group of 1,200 likely voters between April 30 and May 1, the president’s approval rating stands at 45.8 percent approve/43.8 disapprove (with 10.4 percent having no opinion), meaning the president’s net approval stands at +2 points.

Then there’s the latest Emerson College poll of 1,000 registered voters, which was conducted between April 25 and 28. It shows the president tied in terms of approval, 45 percent to 45 percent, with 10 percent described as “neutral”.

The poll that has received the most attention, however, is the New York Times/Siena College poll of 913 registered voters, conducted between April 21 and 24.

In that poll, 42 percent of respondents approve of how Donald Trump is handling his job (28 percent “strongly”), compared to 54 percent who disapprove (45 percent “strongly”), for a net disapproval of 12 points.

Trump Immigration Approval. The Insider Advantage/Trafalgar poll only asked about Trump’s approval generally, not about voters’ approval of any of Trump’s policies.

Fortunately, Emerson did poll on voters’ impressions of Trump’s policies. Unfortunately for the president, the results were not that great for the administration.

For example, just 37 percent of respondents in the Emerson poll approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, while nearly half — 49 percent — disapproved, putting the president 12 points in the red on pocketbook issues.

Tariff policy in the Emerson poll: 51 percent disapprove; 34 percent approve; -17 points net. Foreign policy: 46 percent disapprove; 43 percent approve; -3 points net. Trump’s handling of the war between Russia and Ukraine: 52 percent disapprove; 27 percent approve; -25 points net.

But then there’s immigration policy, where the president enjoys a net +1-point advantage in the Emerson poll, with 45 percent approving versus 44 percent who disapprove.

The NYT/Siena poll tells a similar tale. For example, 55 percent of respondents in that poll disapprove of how Trump has handled the economy (42 percent strongly) compared to 42 percent total who approve (24 percent strongly) — a net negative of 13 points for the president.

With respect to Trump’s handling of the Russia/Ukraine War, 35 percent of respondents in the NYT/Siena poll approve (20 percent strongly) compared to 64 percent who disapprove (42 percent strongly), for a net negative of a whopping 29 points.

On the issue of immigration generally, however, there’s a difference in opinions between the Emerson and the Times polling, with 47 percent of respondents in the latter poll approving of Trump’s handling of the issue (31 percent strongly) compared to 51 percent who disapprove, for a net negative of -4 points.

That’s curious, because in his second presidency, Trump’s immigration policies have almost exclusively focused on deportation, and according to the NYT/Siena poll, “deporting immigrants living in the United States illegally back to their home countries” is one thing Trump has done right, at least in the minds of a majority of the electorate.

Some 54 percent of the respondents questioned in that poll approve of Trump’s deportation policies (37 percent strongly), while just 42 percent disapproved — a net positive of 12 points for the president, and by far his most popular strategy according to the NYT/Siena poll.

“Trump Blasts Sinking Poll Numbers”. Perhaps not surprisingly, the president criticized the methodology behind the NYT/Siena poll, and there are definitely some questions with the makeup of the respondents.

For example, of the 913 voters who participated in that poll, 46 percent claimed to have voted for Trump in the last election, and an equal percentage for his Democratic challenger, then-Vice President Kamala Harris — despite the fact that Trump beat Harris in November by about 1.5 percentage points, 49.8 percent for Trump to 48.3 percent for Harris.

That’s a relatively minor discrepancy, but there are more significant issues with the demographic makeup of the respondents in that poll.

For example, 64 percent of the respondents in that poll identified as “White”, 11 percent as “Hispanic or Latino”, 10 percent as “Black or African American”, 3 percent as “Asian”, and lesser percentages as Native American, “Middle Eastern or North African”, “more than one race”, etc.

According to the latest Census Bureau figures, however, 75.3 percent of Americans identify as “White alone”, 19.5 percent as “Hispanic or Latino”, 13.7 percent as “Black alone”, and 6.4 percent as “Asian alone”.

In other words, the NYT/Siena poll managed to undercount Americans of all races (though 4 percent of respondents also refused to answer the question).

Moreover, of the nearly 174 million registered voters identified by the Census Bureau in November 2024, 141 million (79 percent) identified as “White Alone”, 23.5 million (13.5 percent) as “Black alone or in combination”, 9.5 million (5.23 percent) as “Asian alone or in combination”, and 23.5 million (11.6 percent) as “Hispanic or Latino”, so if anything, the sample of registered White voters in the NYT/Siena poll should have been much higher than it was.

These are important points because Trump’s immigration and deportation policies are more popular among white voters in that poll than they were among other racial groups.

For example, 57 percent of white voters either strongly (43 percent) or “somewhat” (14 percent) support Trump’s deportation policies (compared to an overall 54 percent approval rate), and 52 percent of those voters either strongly (36 percent) or somewhat (16 percent) approve of his immigration policies overall (compared to an overall approval rating of 47 percent).

The president still has a ways to go in selling many of his immigration policies to voters across the board, and yet a majority of voters in the latest NYT/Siena poll still support Trump’s deportation policies in general — a bright spot in an otherwise dismal, albeit questionable, survey for the incumbent.