New poll shows North Carolinians have ‘turned’ on Donald Trump. They have good reason | Opinion

In November, a majority of North Carolina voters said they wanted Donald Trump back in the White House.

Now some are understandably having second thoughts.

A new Catawba-YouGov poll shows that Trump’s job approval rating is underwater in the state he carried three times, including a 50% to 47% victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024. The poll taken in June based on 1,000 respondents shows 46% approve of the job Trump is doing as president while 50% disapprove.

“Overall, while the approval/disapproval is within the poll’s margin of error, North Carolinians’ opinions appear to have turned on the president,” said Michael Bitzer, a Catawba College political science professor who heads the Center for North Carolina Politicsand Public Service.

It’s no wonder. Trump hasn’t delivered on promises to lower the cost of living. He’s disrupted federal services with massive cuts in the federal workforce. He’s arresting and deporting a wide range of undocumented immigrants, not just those with criminal records or pending charges.

David McLennan, director of the Meredith Poll, said his survey of North Carolinians also shows a decline in Trump’s approval.

“Trump’s slide – since January – is a result of the overall chaos surrounding the economy and immigration,” he said. “The greatest fall-off is among unaffiliated voters, who judge his handling of those two issues as worse than they anticipated.”

Trump’s slide is likely to get worse once his “big, beautiful bill” takes effect.

Gov. Josh Stein’s office estimates that under the bill, 520,000 North Carolinians could lose their health insurance because of changes to Medicaid. Meanwhile, the state would have to spend $420 million more annually to support the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. If it doesn’t, 1.4 million North Carolinians – including 600,000 children – could lose food assistance.

And the bill will affect more than the safety net. It eliminates clean energy tax credits that support thousands of North Carolina jobs in solar and wind power development and the manufacture of electric vehicles and batteries. Hindering the expansion of clean energy will also drive up electricity rates.

The Catawba-YouGov poll also shows a majority of those surveyed approve of former Gov. Roy Cooper and current Gov. Stein, both Democrats. The gap between Trump and the governors underscores how much gerrymandering and Trump’s grip on Republicans have warped the state’s political representation and legislative action both in Raleigh and in Washington.

A court-ordered map for the 2022 congressional election led to a 7-7 Republican-Democratic split in the state’s House delegation. After Republican state lawmakers redrew the congressional districts for the 2024 election, the balance became 10-4 in favor of Republicans.

Significantly, the first House version of the “big, beautiful bill” – with all its damage to North Carolina – passed by one vote. The bill may well have failed without the GOP votes added by North Carolina’s gerrymandering.

In another front, the Catawba-YouGov poll shows Stein with 53% approval to 26% disapproval. Cooper, a possible U.S. Senate candidate in 2026, shows a 52% approval rating to 33% disapproval. The former governor even has a nearly 30% approval from those who voted for Trump in 2024.

The numbers for Cooper are particularly telling. He vetoed more than 100 bills during his eight-year tenure – the most ever by a North Carolina governor. How can the General Assembly’s Republican majority be representative of the people’s will if a broadly popular governor had to reject so much of its legislation?

North Carolina’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis had the fortitude to stand up to Trump’s bill. Tillis announced that he will not seek reelection in 2026. If he had, he likely would have lost the GOP nomination to a Trump-backed primary opponent.

But North Carolina’s other Republican senator, Ted Budd, had no qualms about backing Trump’s bill. Budd owes his 2022 GOP Senate nomination to an endorsement from Trump and his election to $14 million in outside funding from the anti-tax Club for Growth and its allied PACs.

The Senate voted 50-50 on Trump’s bill, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. Budd’s vote for it was decisive. Too bad North Carolina didn’t send Democrat Cheri Beasley to the Senate, or at least someone from outside the MAGA world, such as former Gov. Pat McCrory. It might have made all the difference.

North Carolina, like all states, will be hammered by passage of the “big, beautiful bill.” With less gerrymandering and less Republican devotion to Trump, it could have been otherwise. But at least now North Carolina voters appear to be waking up to the mistakes too many made.

This story was originally published July 3, 2025 at 4:30 AM.