Polling released Friday by CNN shows a majority of Americans see President Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House as a “failure” and are dissatisfied with his focus on deportations, warmaking, and gutting the government rather than cutting costs.

SSRS surveyed over 1,000 Americans from last Friday through Monday and found that 58% consider the first year of Trump’s second term as president to be a failure, compared with just 42% who said it was a “success.”

An even higher majority, 64%, said that the Republican “hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems,” a figure that rises to 71% for respondents under age 45.

Additionally, majorities said he has “gone too far” with:

• changes to cultural institutions such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian (62%);
• trying to expand America’s power over other countries (59%);
• use of the power of the presidency and executive branch (58%);
• cuts to federal government programs (57%); use of the US military to achieve his goals (55%);
• deporting immigrants living in the United States illegally (52%); and
• changing the way the United States government works (51%).

Trump last month slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, provoking allegations of “narcissism” and newly introduced legislation that would ban the naming or renaming of federal buildings, land, and other assets after sitting presidents.

Over the past year, he’s also been called out for moving the country “toward oligarchy, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy,” including by serving the interests of the fossil fuel executives and Big Tech billionaires who worked to get him elected. Among them is Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth and former de facto leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which led Trump’s evisceration of the federal workforce.

Trump has also bullied journalists and news agencies across the United States and abroad, unleashed thousands of federal immigration agents for violent enforcement operations in various US cities, and cracked down on protesters, including those opposing his attacks on immigrants.

The administration has also illegally killed over 100 people in a boat-bombing spree allegedly targeting drug traffickers in international waters, abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and recently threatened to bomb Iran and take over Greenland, a Danish territory.

Meanwhile, “when it comes to trying to reduce the price of everyday goods,” 64% of those polled for CNN said Trump has “not gone far enough.”

Research released Thursday by the congressional Joint Economic Committee’s Democratic staff shows that a typical US family paid $310 more for groceries during the first year of Trump’s second term compared to 2024. Millions of Americans are also struggling to get health insurance coverage due to Republicans’ refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.

New from us: Public opinion on nearly every aspect of President Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House is negative, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds.www.cnn.com/2026/01/16/p…

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— Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy.bsky.social) January 16, 2026 at 10:09 AM

“Asked to choose the country’s top issue, Americans pick the economy by a nearly two-to-one margin over any other topic,” CNN reported. “The poll suggests Trump is struggling to prove that he’s addressing it.”

“Views of economic conditions have remained stable—and largely negative—for the past two years, with about 3 in 10 rating the economy positively,” the network detailed. “What’s changed in the latest poll is the increased pessimism about the future: Just over 4 in 10 expect the economy to be good a year from now, down from 56% just before Trump was sworn in last January.”

Overall, 61% of respondents said they disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president. Democratic strategists called the results “brutal” and “devastating.” As New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie put it, “A year in and Trump is in free fall with the public across every conceivable issue.”

Faced with widespread disapproval from voters, Trump is doing whatever he can to keep his party in power—including pressuring GOP state legislators to rig their congressional maps before November, trying to seize sensitive voter data, and even suggesting that this year’s elections should be canceled.

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