Are Americans optimistic or pessimistic about Trump’s 2nd term? What a new poll found
Most Americans are hopeful about President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, according to new polling.
In the latest CBS News/YouGov poll, 60% of respondents said they were generally optimistic about the next four years with Trump as president, while 40% said they were largely pessimistic.
Among those who expressed optimism, 80% said their reasoning had to do with what they hope Trump will accomplish as president, while 20% said it had to do with President Joe Biden no longer being in office.
This sense of optimism for the future accompanies rosy expectations for the U.S. economy and global affairs, according to the poll, which was released on Inauguration Day.
While just 38% of respondents said the state of the economy is currently good, a majority, 52%, said they expect it to be good in 2025.
And close to half of respondents, 46%, said they believe Trump’s policies will increase peace and stability in the world. Meanwhile, a smaller share, 37%, said they believe they will decrease peace and stability.
Conducted between Jan. 15 and 17, the poll sampled 2,174 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
The share of Americans who feel optimistic about Trump’s second term is higher than in recent inaugurations — though levels of optimism were higher decades ago.
When Biden took office in 2021, 58% of Americans said they were optimistic about the next four years, a 2-point difference from Trump. Similarly, when Trump first took office in 2017, 56% of Americans expressed optimism.
Former President Barack Obama, by comparison, blew them both out of the water. Ahead of his first term in 2009, 79% of Americans said they were optimistic for the next four years.
And ahead of the inaugurations for former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, 64%, 70% and 68% of Americans, respectively, expressed optimism. Likewise, 69% said they were optimistic ahead of former President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, and about the same share, 70%, said the same ahead of former President Jimmy Carter’s term.
This story was originally published January 20, 2025 at 10:44 AM with the headline "Are Americans optimistic or pessimistic about Trump’s 2nd term? What a new poll found."