u.s. adult

WASHINGTON — Many Democrats see their political party as “weak” or “ineffective,” while Republicans are more complimentary of their party, although a small but significant share describe the GOP as “greedy” or say it is generally “bad,” according to a new poll.

The poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in July reveals warning signs for both major U.S. parties as the political focus shifts to elections in New Jersey and Virginia this fall and the midterm contests next year.

Respondents were asked to share the first word or phrase that came to mind when they thought of the Republican and Democratic parties. Answers were then sorted into broad categories, including negative and positive attributes. Overall, U.S. adults held a dim view of both parties, with about 4 in 10 using negative attributes, including words such as “dishonest” or “stupid.”

But nearly nine months after Republican Donald Trump won a second presidential term, Democrats appear to be harboring more resentment about the state of their party than do Republicans. Democrats were likelier to describe their own party negatively than Republicans. Republicans were about twice as likely to describe their own party positively.

“They’re spineless,” Cathia Krehbiel, a 48-year-old Democrat from Indianola, Iowa, said of her party.

She believes the party’s response to the Trump administration has been “scattershot.”

“I just feel like there’s so much recently that’s just going abhorrently wrong,” Krehbiel said. “And they speak up a little bit and they roll right over.”

Democrats’ views

Overall, roughly one-third of Democrats described their party negatively in the open-ended question.

About 15% described the Democratic Party using such words as “weak” or “apathetic,” while an additional 10% believe it is broadly “ineffective” or “disorganized.”

Only about 2 in 10 Democrats described their party positively, with roughly 1 in 10 saying it is “empathetic” or “inclusive.” An additional 1 in 10 used more general positive descriptors.

It is unclear what effect the Democrats’ unease may have on upcoming elections or the political debate in Washington, but no political organization wants to be plagued by internal divisions.

Still, the Democrats’ frustration appears to reflect their concern that party leaders are not doing enough to stop Trump’s GOP, which controls Washington.

There is little sign that such voters would abandon their party in favor of Trump’s allies in upcoming elections, and the vast majority of Democrats described the GOP negatively. But disaffected Democrats might decide not to vote at all. That could undermine their party’s push to reclaim at least one chamber of Congress in 2026.

Jim Williams, a 78-year-old retiree from Harper Woods, Mich., is a self-described political independent who said he typically supports Democrats, but he is “disappointed” with the party and its murky message. He views the Republican Party as much worse, saying it “has lost it” under Trump’s leadership.

“All he does is bully and call names. They’ve got no morals, no ethics. And the more they back him, the less I like them,” he said of Trump.

Republicans’ views

Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to describe their party positively, with many also using straightforward ideological descriptors like “conservative.”

About 4 in 10 Republicans used positive attributes to characterize the GOP, making general mentions of words such as “patriotic” or “hardworking,” or offering associations with the word “freedom.”

Samuel Washington, 65, of Chicago, said he typically votes Republican. He praised Trump’s leadership, even while acknowledging that the president’s policies on trade and spending might be creating short-term economic hardship.

“There’s a lot of pain, but the pain is the result of 12 years of misuse and misguided leadership from the Democratic Party,” he said. “I’m feeling really good about Republicans and the direction that they’re going.”

But views were not uniformly good. About 2 in 10 Republicans said something negative about the party, including phrases such as “greedy,” “for the rich” or “corrupt.”

Republican Dick Grayson, an 83-year-old veteran from Trade, Tenn., said he is “disappointed” by his party’s fealty to Trump.

Among other things, he pointed to the price tag of Trump’s tax-and-spend package, which will add nearly $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“I’ve always been a Republican, but I’m disillusioned about both parties,” Grayson said.

Americans’ views overall

Among all Americans, the poll finds that the Republican Party is viewed slightly more negatively than the Democratic Party. The different is not large: 43% used negative words to describe the Republicans, compared with 39% for the Democrats.

Much of the negativity is driven by the opposing party — and nonaligned voters’ distaste for both. So-called political independents are much likelier to describe both parties with negative attributes rather than positive descriptors, though a significant share did not offer an opinion.

Curtis Musser, a 60-year-old unaffiliated voter from Beverly Hills, Fla., said both parties have shifted too far toward the extreme for his liking.

He said he is ready for a serious third party to emerge before the next presidential election, pointing to Elon Musk’s new America Party, which has been slow to launch.

“Maybe he would get us headed in the right direction,” the retired schoolteacher said.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,437 adults was conducted July 10-14, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Peoples, Sanders and Yoo write for the Associated Press. Peoples reported from New York, Sanders and Yoo from Washington.

WASHINGTON — Slightly less than half of U.S. adults believe that Black people face “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of discrimination in the United States, according to a poll. That’s a decline from the solid majority, 60%, who thought Black Americans faced high levels of discrimination in the spring of 2021, months after racial reckoning protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd.

Significant numbers of Americans also think diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, also known as DEI, are backfiring against the groups they’re intended to help, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, including many people who belong to those groups.

The findings suggest Americans’ views on racial discrimination have shifted substantially since four years ago, when many companies launched efforts to promote diversity within their workforces and the products they sold.

Since then, many of those companies have reversed themselves and retreated from their diversity practices, a trend that’s accelerated this year under pressure from President Trump, a Republican who has sought to withhold federal money from schools and companies that promote DEI.

Now, it’s clear that views are changing as well as company policies.

Claudine Brider, a 48-year-old Black Democrat in Compton, California, says the concept of DEI has made the workplace difficult for Black people and women in new ways.

“Anytime they’re in a space that they’re not expected to be, like seeing a Black girl in an engineering course … they are seen as only getting there because of those factors,” Brider said. “It’s all negated by someone saying, ‘You’re only here to meet a quota.’”

Reversal in views of racial discrimination

The poll finds 45% of U.S. adults think Black people face high levels of discrimination, down from 60% in the spring of 2021. There was a similar drop in views about the prevalence of serious discrimination against Asian people, which fell from 45% in the 2021 poll — conducted a month after the Atlanta spa shootings, which killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent — to 32% in the current survey.

There’s no question the country has backtracked from its “so-called racial reckoning” and the experiences of particular groups such as Black people are being downplayed, said Phillipe Copeland, a professor at Boston University School of Social Work.

Americans’ views about discrimination haven’t shifted when it comes to all groups, though. Just under half of U.S. adults, 44%, now say Hispanic people face at least “quite a bit of discrimination,” and only 15% say this about white people. Both numbers are similar to when the question was last asked in April 2021.

Divisions on the impact of DEI on Black and Hispanic people

The poll indicates that less than half of Americans think DEI has a benefit for the people it’s intended to help.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say DEI reduces discrimination against Black people, while about one-third say this about Hispanic people, women and Asian people. Many — between 33% and 41% — don’t think DEI makes a difference either way. About one-quarter of U.S. adults believe that DEI actually increases discrimination against these groups.

Black and Hispanic people are more likely than white people to think DEI efforts end up increasing discrimination against people like them.

About 4 in 10 Black adults and about one-third of Hispanic adults say DEI increases discrimination against Black people, compared with about one-quarter of white adults. There is a similar split between white adults and Black and Hispanic adults on assessments of discrimination against Hispanic people.

Among white people, it’s mostly Democrats who think DEI efforts reduce discrimination against Black and Hispanic people. Only about one-quarter of white independents and Republicans say the same.

Pete Parra, a 59-year-old resident of Gilbert, Ariz., thinks that DEI is making things harder for racial minorities now. He worries about how his two adult Hispanic sons will be treated when they apply for work.

“I’m not saying automatically just give it to my sons,” said Parra, who leans toward the Democratic Party. But he’s concerned that now factors other than merit may take priority.

“If they get passed over for something,” he said, “they’re not going to know (why).”

About 3 in 10 say DEI increases discrimination against white people

The poll shows that Americans aren’t any more likely to think white people face discrimination than they were in 2021. And more than half think DEI doesn’t make a difference when it comes to white people or men.

But a substantial minority — about 3 in 10 U.S. adults — think DEI increases discrimination against white people. Even more white adults, 39%, hold that view, compared with 21% of Hispanic adults and 13% of Black adults.

The recent political focus on DEI has included the idea that white people are more often overlooked for career and educational opportunities because of their race.

John Bartus, a 66-year-old registered Republican in Twin Falls, Idaho, says that DEI might have been “a good thing for all races of people, but it seems like it’s gone far left.” It’s his impression that DEI compels companies to hire people based on their race or if they identify as LGBTQ+.

“The most qualified person ought to get a job based on their merit or based on their educational status,” Bartus said.

Brider, the Black California resident, objects to the notion that white people face the same level of discrimination as Black people. But while she thinks the aims of DEI are admirable, she also sees the reality as flawed.

“I do think there needs to be something that ensures that there is a good cross-section of people in the workplace,” Brider said. “I just don’t know what that would look like, to be honest.”

Tang and Thomson-Deveaux write for the Associated Press. The AP-NORC poll of 1,437 adults was conducted July 10-14, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

WASHINGTON — Eric Hildenbrand has noticed prices continue to rise this year with President Trump in the White House.

The San Diego resident doesn’t blame Trump, however, his choice for president in 2024, but says Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats who control the state are at fault.

“You can’t compare California with the rest of the country,” said Hildenbrand, 76. “I don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the country. It seems like prices are dropping. Things are getting better, but I don’t necessarily see it here.”

Voters like Hildenbrand, whose support of the Republican president is unwavering, help explain Trump’s polling numbers and how they have differed from other presidents’ polling trajectory in significant ways. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March found that 42% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s job performance. That is a lower rating than those of other recent presidents at the beginning of their second terms, including Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush.

The most recent AP-NORC poll, from July, puts Trump at 40% approval. While that is not a meaningful change from March, there is some evidence that Trump’s support may be softening, at least on the margins. The July poll showed a slight decrease in approval of his handling of immigration since earlier in the year. Some other pollsters, such as Gallup, show a downward slide in overall approval since slightly earlier in his term, in January.

But even those shifts are within a relatively narrow range, which is typical for Trump. The new AP-NORC polling tracker shows that Trump’s favorability rating has remained largely steady since the end of his first term, with between 33% and 43% of U.S. adults saying they viewed him favorably across more than five years.

Those long-term trends underscore that Trump has many steadfast opponents. But loyal supporters also help explain why views of the president are hard to change even as he pursues policies that most Americans do not support, using an approach that many find abrasive.

Persistently low approval numbers

Trump has not had a traditional honeymoon period in his second term. He did not in his first, either.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in March 2017, two months into his first term, showed that 42% of Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” approved of his performance. That is largely where his approval rating stayed over the course of the next four years.

The recent slippage on immigration is particularly significant because that issue was a major strength for Trump in the 2024 election. Earlier in his second term, it was also one of the few areas where he was outperforming his overall approval. In March, about half of U.S. adults approved of his handling of immigration. But the July AP-NORC poll found his approval on immigration at 43%, in line with his overall approval rating.

Other recent polls show growing discontent with Trump’s approach on immigration. A CNN/SSRS poll found that 55% of U.S. adults say the president has gone too far when it comes to deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally, an increase of 10 percentage points since February.

“I understand wanting to get rid of illegal immigrants, but the way that’s being done is very aggressive,” said Donovan Baldwin, 18, of Asheboro, N.C., who did not vote in the 2024 election. “And that’s why people are protesting, because it comes off as aggression. It’s not right.”

Ratings of Trump’s handling of the economy, which were more positive during his first term, have been persistently negative in his second term. The July poll found that few Americans think Trump’s policies have benefited them so far.

Even if he is not a fan of everything Trump has done so far, Brian Nichols, 58, of Albuquerque is giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Nichols, who voted for Trump in 2024, likes what he is seeing from the president overall, though he has his concerns both on style and substance, particularly Trump’s social media presence and his on-again, off-again tariffs. Nichols also does not like the push to eliminate federal agencies such as the Education Department.

Despite his occasional disagreements with Trump, though, Nichols said he wants to give the president space to do his job, and he trusts the House and Senate, now run by Republicans, to act as a safeguard.

“We put him into office for a reason, and we should be trusting that he’s doing the job for the best of America,” Nichols said.

Overall views are steady

Trump has spent the last six months pushing far-reaching and often unpopular policies. Earlier this year, Americans were bracing themselves for higher prices as a result of his approach to tariffs. The July poll found that most people think Trump’s tax and spending bill will benefit the wealthy, while few think it will pay dividends for the middle class or people like them.

Discomfort with individual policies may not translate into wholesale changes in views of Trump, though. Those have largely been constant through years of turmoil, with his favorability rating staying within a 10-percentage point range through his widely panned handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, a felony conviction and an attempted assassination.

To some of his supporters, the benefits of his presidency far outweigh the costs.

Kim Schultz, 62, of Springhill, Fla., said she is thrilled with just about everything Trump is doing as president, particularly his aggressive moves to deport anyone living in the country illegally.

Even if Trump’s tariffs eventually take effect and push prices up, she said she will not be alarmed.

“I’ve always had the opinion that if the tariffs are going to cost me a little bit more here and there, I don’t have a problem with that,” she said.

Across the country, Hildenbrand dislikes Trump’s personality and his penchant for insults, including those directed at foreign leaders. But he thinks Trump is making things happen.

“More or less, to me, he’s showing that he’s on the right track,” he said. “I’m not in favor of Trump’s personality, but I am in favor of what he’s getting done.”

Thomson-Deveaux and Cooper write for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and Phoenix, respectively.

WASHINGTON — Just months after President Trump returned to office amid a wave of anti-immigration sentiment, the share of U.S. adults saying immigration is a “good thing” for the country has jumped substantially — including among Republicans, according to new Gallup polling.

About 8 in 10 Americans, 79%, say immigration is “a good thing” for the country today, an increase from 64% a year ago and a high point in the nearly 25-year trend. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say immigration is a bad thing right now, down from 32% last year.

During Democratic President Joe Biden’s term in office, negative views of immigration had increased markedly, reaching a high point in the months before Trump, a Republican, took office. The new Gallup data suggests U.S. adults are returning to more pro-immigrant views that could complicate Trump’s push for sweeping deportations and other anti-immigration policies. The poll shows decreasing support for the type of mass deportations Trump has championed since before he was elected.

Since taking office, Trump has called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do all in its power to deliver “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.” His administration has also pushed to limit access to federal benefits for immigrants who lack legal status, sought to revoke the citizenship of immigrants who commit crimes and is working to end birthright citizenship for children born to those without legal status or who are in the country temporarily.

In general, Americans’ views of immigration policies have shifted dramatically in the last year, the Gallup polling shows — including among Republicans, who have become much more content with immigration levels since Trump took office but who have also grown more supportive of pathways to citizenship for people in the country illegally.

The broader trend also shows that public opinion is generally much more favorable to immigrants than it was decades ago.

The vast majority of U.S. adults say immigration is good

Americans’ more positive view on immigration is driven primarily by a shift among Republicans and independents.

About two-thirds of Republicans now say immigrants are “a good thing” for the country, up from 39% last year. And independents moved from about two-thirds last year to 80% this year.

Democrats have maintained their overwhelmingly positive view of immigration in the last few years.

The share of Americans who want immigration decreased has dropped significantly

In the time since Trump took office, Republicans have become more satisfied with the level of immigration in the country.

The share of Americans who want immigration “decreased” in the United States dropped from 55% to 30%. While fewer Americans now want to decrease the number of people who come to the U.S. from other countries, more want immigration levels kept the same than want higher immigration levels. About 4 in 10 say immigration should be kept at its current level, and only 26% say immigration should be increased.

The poll suggests Republicans’ sharp anti-immigrant views highlighted before November’s election — which helped return Trump to the White House — have largely faded. The share of Republicans saying immigration should be decreased dropped from a high of 88% to 48% in the last year. Close to 4 in 10 Republicans now say immigration levels should remain the same, and only about 1 in 10 would like an increase.

Much of that Republican movement probably comes from support for the Trump administration’s stringent immigration enforcement, but there are also signs in the Gallup polling that Republicans have become more supportive of pathways to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally and more likely to see benefits from immigration that could be at odds with the Trump administration’s priorities.

More Americans back a pathway to citizenship

Most Americans favor allowing immigrants living in the U.S. illegally the chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period of time, the poll shows.

Almost 9 in 10 U.S. adults, 85%, favor a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and nearly as many say they favor a path to citizenship for all immigrants in the country illegally as long as they meet certain requirements.

That increased support for pathways to citizenship largely comes from Republicans, about 6 in 10 of whom now support that, up from 46% last year. Support was already very high among independents and Democrats.

Support for deporting immigrants in the country illegally has also decreased across the board, but less significantly. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults now favor deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally, down from about half a year ago.

Sanders writes for the Associated Press.