Poll results: Americans still trust Republicans more to handle most key issues

Americans continue to trust Republicans in Congress to handle most key issues, such as inflation, the border and foreign policy. So found a survey by The Wall Street Journal conducted in early January. However, the Democratic Party outperforms the Republican Party in voting intention for the midterm elections.

Despite both modern electoral history and most polls being less than optimistic, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans will look to defend their majority in both houses come November 4.

Against this election backdrop, the WSJ poll found that Americans trust Republicans more to manage core issues. The biggest difference with Democrats was on border security, where Republicans were 28 percentage points up.

Congressional Republicans also outperformed Democrats on economics (+6), inflation (+6), foreign policy(+5), the Russia-Ukraine war (+4), tariffs (+2) and a category called "setting the right priorities" (+2).

For their part, Democrats outperformed Republicans on four other topics: health (+15), vaccination (+9), caring for the middle class (+3) and "concern for people like you" (+3).

In addition, the negative image of the Democratic Party is eight points higher than that of the Republican Party. "Our branding is still as bad as it’s ever been. We see it in focus groups: No one can say anything positive about the Democrats," expressed a fellow Democrat and one of the poll's authors, John Anzalone.

However, when Americans were asked which party they planned to vote for in the midterm elections, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by four points, 47% to 43%.

Warnings for Trump

The poll also yielded some warnings for President Trump. Despite maintaining support among the Republican base, especially among the working class, his popularity has dropped since July.

"Support for Trump among his most loyal supporters remains remarkably resilient, limiting damage to his political standing from the sour views of his economic management. Some 92% of people who voted for him in 2024 give him a positive job rating today, including 70% who 'strongly approve.' (...) While 45% of voters approve of the president’s job performance, 54% disapprove—a 9-point gap, compared with 6 points in the last Journal survey in July," explained the aforementioned media.

In addition, most believe that Trump went too far in implementing his immigration agenda. Specifically, more than 50% felt that the president has gone too far on these issues: deporting illegal immigrants, expanding pardon power, deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and threatening to take action against foreign governments.