New polling finds voters broadly hoping for President-elect Donald Trump to focus on reducing prices once he takes office, but with mixed expectations for whether he will succeed. At the same time, multiple polls find a tepid public response to Trump’s selections for key administration roles.
A Fox News poll of registered voters conducted December 6 to 9 finds that the economy remains the country’s most pressing problem, as 60% say it is extremely important for Trump to focus on lowering the price for food and gas. Bringing prices down is far and away the top priority of 10 tested in the poll, ahead of cutting taxes for individual taxpayers (47% call this extremely important), strengthening national defense (42%), deporting immigrants who are in the US illegally (38%), ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs (29%), reducing the size of the federal government (29%), and decreasing US aid to Ukraine (26%). The remaining three were called extremely important by 20% of voters or less.
But voters divide about evenly over whether prices for food and gas will increase (41%) or decrease (39%) under the new Trump administration, with 19% expecting they will stay about the same. Most say they expect the country’s southern border to be more secure (56%, with 14% saying it will be less secure), and that restrictions on abortion will increase (52%, with 13% saying they will decrease). And more say they expect increases than decreases in the national debt (48% increase vs. 31% decrease) and their own taxes (37% say they’ll go up, 30% down) under Trump.
The Fox poll finds voters split 47% approve to 50% disapprove on how Trump is doing choosing his Cabinet, with half or fewer saying they’d like the Senate to vote to confirm several top picks for Cabinet or other high-level roles, but no majority opposition to any of the choices tested. The share in favor of confirming outweighs the share against for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (48% yes to 43% no), Marco Rubio for Secretary of State (46% to 35%), Pam Bondi for Attorney General (37% to 32%), and Scott Bessent for Secretary of the Treasury (32% to 27%). Negative sentiment tops the positive for Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense (40% no to 31% yes), and Kash Patel for Director of the FBI (38% no to 34% yes).
The results are similar in an AP-NORC survey of adults which finds more disapprove than approve of Trump’s selection of Kennedy (42% disapprove, 30% approve), Tulsi Gabbard (29% disapprove, 21% approve) and Hegseth (36% disapprove, 17% approve) to roles in his administration, with opinions mixed about Rubio (31% approve and 31% disapprove). Sizable shares have no opinion on each of these selections, with 28% or more either neutral or unsure about them.
A Monmouth University poll out today also finds the public split over whether Trump will suspend some laws and constitutional provisions to go after political enemies.
