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Feb. 9, 2026 13:00-13:31 - CSPAN
30:57
Washington Journal Cliff Young
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No Agenda 00:10:26
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Welcome back to Washington Journal.
Joining us to talk about public opinion and campaign 2026 is Cliff Young, Ipsos Public Affairs Polling and Societal Trends President.
Welcome, Cliff.
It's great to be here.
Let's start with President Trump's overall approval rating.
I'll just show this slide right here that shows that over time, this is over the past year that he's been in office.
Kind of take us through this, if you will.
We'll put it on the screen.
Here is where he just takes office.
There's a little bump, as most presidents get when they first take office, and then what happens?
Yeah, and then he declines.
But ultimately, quickly, Mimi, that's the average of all the polls out there, not just Ipsos.
That's the best measure to understand where we are, why are approval ratings important?
They're important for two primary reasons.
They're really good at predicting the elections or the next election.
And they say a lot about whether a president can push through his or her agenda, right?
And so where we are, the decline over the first year is about eight points for Trump.
The average historic average is about five, so he's sort of outstripping that average.
He's doing worse than the average.
Right now, he's at 42 points.
Approval rating, that's marginal.
I mean, he's holding steady, let's say.
He's weakening on the margins.
The tipping points at 40.
When you get into the 30s, it really becomes difficult to win those elections and to push forward your agenda.
So I would say he's at the edge.
Trump and the Republicans are facing headwinds right now, and the numbers reflect it.
Now, you've got a couple of major events here.
For instance, Liberation Day tariffs announced, signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill, the government shutdown, the capture of Maduro, the shooting, fatal shooting of Renee Goode.
Can you explain how any of those impacted President Trump's approval rating, if at all?
Yeah, we have to understand that events can impact approval ratings, and so we have to be very cognizant of that.
They can impact it negatively or positively, usually not for that long because you have this natural tendency downward.
That's just the way it is.
When you govern, you start to lose your coalition as you make decisions, as you push your ultimate agenda forward.
The tariffs were very frictional.
People did not like them.
People were worried about the inflationary aspects to them.
They still are.
Even before they actually started.
Even before.
That was the worry.
And actually, it's very interesting because you had an effect of an event that hadn't even happened on the numbers.
We can understand that's why Trump and his administration pulled back a bit, reorganized, readjusted, and pushed forward.
Things like Venezuela had a positive impact of a point or two, but that was temporary.
Those foreign policy endeavors, unless you're in the middle of a war, you put troops on the ground, don't last very long.
And so we typically like to associate events to understand where those approval numbers are.
Now that those approval numbers, as you said, were an aggregate of all the polls out there.
This one here is President Trump's approval ratings on economic issues specifically and other issues.
This is an Ipsos poll.
So let's talk about this.
We've got the cost of living at the lowest.
That's at 30% approval.
The highest here is immigration at 39%.
First of all, it doesn't seem like a big spread to me between 30 and 39.
Or is it, in fact, a big spread?
Is it substantial?
Well, I think for today's world, the highly polarized tribal world we live in, you have two sides, red and blue.
It's a pretty big spread because people typically select their team, whether, like I said before, whether it's red or blue, before they even answer a question.
And it makes sense too, right?
When you peel away the onion and you look at Trump's numbers on the issues, he does better than his issues.
There is kind of a brand bump there.
There's the Trump effect or Halo for him.
But on his issues, he's underwater, I would say, right now.
He's below 30.
His best issue is 39% immigration.
That's not great.
It's the strongest one.
The one he's weakest on, obviously, is cost of living, affordability.
And that's really going to be the one that, in our mind, determines the midterm elections.
Well, let's talk a little bit more about immigration and ICE enforcement and tactics.
You did a question on the shooting of Alex Predi and asking the question: was it an excessive use of force?
So talk about the responses there.
Yeah, so it doesn't matter how you ask this question.
You can answer it in a whole bunch of different ways, but it shows basically the same thing: that a majority of Americans think that ICE went too far.
In this specific question, it was 55% say that.
Now, there are large partisan differences.
Republicans think less so.
Democrats think more so.
What's critical here is that we have independents that are tending towards excessive use of force.
They help determine the next election.
They're the swing voters.
And as I said, if you just look across all questions, whether at Ipsos or from other polling firms, Americans believe that ICE went too far.
I'll invite our callers to start calling in now.
If you'd like to talk to Cliff Young of Ipsos, you can do so by party.
So Republicans are on 2028-8001.
Democrats 202748-8000.
And Independents 202748-8002.
Cliff, as you know, anybody that doesn't like the results of a poll will attack the poll itself.
So if you could tell us about how you got these numbers and what was the methodology that you used, how many people did you talk to?
It's always attacking the messenger, right?
Always attacking the pollster, right?
But ultimately, this is a sample representative of the American population by demographics, by party persuasion, Republican, Democrat, and Independent.
We do this poll online.
We go to people's doors, we knock on their doors, or we send a mail, invite in the mail, excuse me.
We bring them to the poll.
This is a gold standard we've used over the course of the last decade or the last decades.
It's very analogous to other methodologies used, and that's specifically what we did.
There's this question here about deportation.
So you asked about if they support deporting undocumented immigrants and how comfortable they are.
So here is that it's 26% are at supporting support deporting undocumented immigrants and are comfortable with current tactics.
Then 45%, the largest chunk here, support deporting undocumented immigrants but are uncomfortable with current tactics.
And finally, 26%, so about a quarter, do not support deporting undocumented immigrants, I guess, at all.
Yeah, and I think that question is very telling.
It reinforces what we find in the poll, in the polls in general.
Americans are very nuanced on the issue of immigration, right?
If you put those numbers together, about 71% in one way or another support deportation.
There's nuance there.
There's more support for, let's say, deporting criminals than children, as an example.
But overall, Americans are saying, even if I agree, I think the taxes tactics have to be adjusted.
Indeed, another question we have on the same poll suggests that on the one hand, Americans are in favor of strong borders.
They're in favor of enforcing the existing laws.
But ICE agents need to be better trained, and there needs to be a path forward for citizenship of those who are not here legally.
So ultimately, I think the takeaway is that Americans are nuanced and we just have to sort of recognize that.
You wrote a book that is titled Nativist Nation: Populism, Grievance, Identity, and the Transformation of American Politics.
Can you explain what you mean by nativism?
Nativism is favoring native-born over foreign-born, very simply, right?
It is, I believe, and my co-author believes, the primary force driving politics today, both in the United States and globally.
And ultimately, it's what we're seeing with the Super Bowl, right?
We have the half-dynes show and the alternative half-dine show.
This is nativism in a nutshell.
But ultimately, when you peel the onion away, it's really about American identity, who belongs and who doesn't, who is a true American, who isn't.
And it defines, as I said before, politics today.
So you have this interesting chart.
This goes back to 1995.
The trend lines here, this is the red on top is Republicans, and then independents, or sorry, total is in the middle and gray, and then the blue is Democrat.
The percent who agree that when jobs are scarce, employers should prioritize hiring people of this country over immigrants.
It has interestingly not really changed that much over time for Republicans, but has changed for Democrats.
Can you explain that?
Yeah, and so we have a changing composition of the parties.
On the one hand, Republicans have become more the party of the working class.
The Democrats have become more the party of the more educated.
Student Loan Issue 00:04:46
So that's in part how we understand these trends.
It's very important to emphasize that in 95, the beginning of the trend, we were all equally nativist.
Now we have this huge gulf, almost 30 points between Democrats and Republicans.
And that's just a very important proof point of my point that this is an important, if not the most important, driver of politics today.
All right, let's talk to callers.
We'll start with Alan Rhinelander, Wisconsin Independent Line.
Go ahead, Alan.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning.
I wanted to talk about the student loan issue.
And this is rarely asked about, and it probably isn't reflected very well in the polls.
But there are around 37 million voters in this country who will never be able to repay their student loans.
So around 40% of these people never even graduated college, but yet they have the student loan debt to deal with.
Now, the Republicans, up to this point in Trump's term, they get an F minus on actually handling this issue in a way that serves not only their constituents, but the whole entire country.
Now, Trump knows full well.
Lyndon McMahon, they both know full well that bankruptcy rights have got to be returned to these predatory loans.
Trump knows about bankruptcy.
Lynn the McMahon knows full well personally about bankruptcy.
Now, some smart Republicans like Ron DeSantis, they're calling for the return of bankruptcy with a clawback from the colleges.
And I think that's completely appropriate.
But, you know, that idea is getting nowhere within the party because, quite frankly, I think it's been captured by the elites, by the colleges, by the lending industry, and by local forces who are profiting wildly on this failed loan scam.
All right, Ellen.
Let's get close.
Anything on student loan?
Well, not specifically.
Obviously, if you ask on it, it's a big concern among younger Americans, Gen Z and millennials.
I think it goes to a broader issue of affordability this year, the ability to make ends meet.
Obviously, a student loan is chunky.
It takes away from your disposable income and the ability to do other things.
It's a primary concern of Americans going into the midterms this year.
Democrats are doing better on that.
We just saw that with the data on Trump.
He's not doing well on cost of living.
Republicans are not doing well on cost of living.
And obviously, student loans, among other issues, are sort of wrapped up together in that issue of affordability.
So let's take a look at that specifically.
So here's your chart on if the 2026 congressional elections were held today, which of the following would be the single most important factor for you in deciding who to vote for?
Cost of living by far was the top as far as total goes, but for Democrats, it was protecting democracy and democratic norms.
So talk a little bit about that chart.
Yeah, once again, cost of living or affordability is a critical issue.
In our mind, that will be the issue that defines the midterms this year.
But, you know, threats to democracy, worries about norms is a Democratic issue.
It's especially an issue among the more educated.
It's important to emphasize that point.
That's one of the Achilles' heels, in my opinion, of the Democratic Party, is that because they're top-heavy with educated people, they're worried about issues that aren't necessarily the focal point of the average American.
I think we're going to have a force kind of drawing parties and politicians to the center, to the average voter, which is focused on affordability.
But we can understand the breakdown of priorities that way.
The last point I was going to make is Republicans, while they're worried about cost of living, also worried about immigration.
Obviously, immigration is a critical issue, especially for their base.
Rachel is in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Democrat.
Hi, Rachel.
Good morning.
Thank you, C-SPAN.
Good morning, Mr. Young.
My question is, and your opinion is, what is your opinion of the recent racist video that President Trump reposted?
And what will the effect be among the American population of seeing such an awful thing and President Trump not apologizing, seeing that it's hurtful?
Media Bubbles and Poll Dynamics 00:06:02
Regarding his moral character, how will this affect him in the polls?
Thank you.
I don't think it's going to have much of an impact directly.
Whatever you think about Trump, it's already baked in.
I do think it's an important proof point for advertising this electoral season.
Every Democrat's going to use it and reinforce it.
I also think it goes to this issue of nativism.
Nativism isn't racism.
It's important or a racial grievance.
It's important to emphasize that point.
But there are interconnections there.
I think it also has a lot to do with the media bubbles we live in.
In one media bubble, it might be not seen as negative, and in other ones, it will.
Again, not making a value judgment about it, trying to explain sort of the dynamics there.
But ultimately, I don't think it affects him.
But it is a give me to Democrats this year.
Joanne Nevada Republican.
Hi, Joanne.
You're on the air.
Hi.
I wanted to address the polls.
It's not that I'm answering the questions on the polls.
It's not the pollster's fault.
It's the questions they ask.
By the time you get down to answering the question, you don't understand what the, you forgot what the question was.
They make it too long and too hard to understand.
So I told my brother, I said, I don't know if I'm answering this for my side or how I really think I get so confused.
So I just dropped on answering polls.
So Joanne, have you?
Wait, no, I'm going to let you continue, but I just wanted to know, have you been called for polls?
And do you still have a landline?
Is that how you're getting?
I do have a landline.
I don't use myself.
No, that's social media.
That's what gets you in trouble.
I got in trouble with Facebook, and I said, uh-uh, I ain't going to get that mean.
People on social media is me.
Okay, but go ahead with your other point, Joanne.
Oh, I wanted to say I was the lady in H ⁇ R Block singing, thank you, Trump, daddy's home, because my tax rate this year threw the roof.
Thank you, Trump.
I love you, buddy.
Any comment click?
Well, there's lots unpacked there.
So, you know, basically, I would say it is our fault if she can't get through, the caller can't get through the questionnaire.
I mean, we need to make them short and understandable.
We work hard to do that, but we don't always do the greatest job.
You know, the question is, you know, covering the coverage on the one hand and understandability on the other.
The other point is, while our national poll at Ipsos is online, which makes more sense, a lot of the state and local elections are done by telephone.
It's easier to get to people because we use voter rolls.
That is, the industry uses voter rolls and links it to sell and mobile phones.
That gets at those individuals that don't vote all the time, but they vote once in a while.
We call them low-propensity voters.
So I imagine that the caller is being called on her landline and or cell phone because of that.
But ultimately, it is our responsibility to make sure there's questions that are understandable.
Don, in Mantua Township, New Jersey, Independent Line, you're on the air, Don.
Yes.
Do you think that with this Trump's antique's criticizing the halftime show of the Super Bowl and trying to build a memorial arch in his name, the other silly things that he has done, renaming the Kennedy Center?
And I think he's jeopardized the Republican Party and has put them in a position now that they are not only going to, they might lose the House, but they're also going to lose the Senate.
And if that happens, I think his presidency is over.
What is your opinion on that?
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
Carla makes a great point, great question.
I don't think it's as much the specific issues or things that Trump is doing that matter.
I think it's about focus.
I think this, you know, we know based upon data historically that administrations have about one year to get things done.
They've had a lot of priorities and haven't focused on one thing, and that's been a problem.
That's the first point.
I think all these examples are proof points reinforcing the fact that administration wasn't that focused or hasn't been that focused.
That said, the Super Bowl alternative halftine show reinforces and it's red meat to the base.
But ultimately, it's going to be about affordability this year.
That's what people are worried about.
And if the administration and Republicans aren't focused on that, they definitely will lose the House.
And even now, we're beginning to see cracks in the foundation when it comes to the Senate.
And this is your chart on that.
This is Real Clear Politics poll average.
This is a 2026 generic congressional vote.
So would you vote for the Democrat or the Republican?
And you can see those lines are, as time goes on over the course of the year, those lines are starting to separate with Democrats on top at 47.7%, Republicans at 42.5%.
Yeah, it's not a good place for the Republicans.
It's not a good place for the administration.
A five-point advantage by Democrats really is a problematic leading indicator for Republicans.
It's good for Democrats.
If you take that into kind of models and project out, it suggests that the Democrats would take back the House this year.
So yeah, the numbers are not looking good, whether at the administration level, that is the presidency, or specifically at the House.
We've got a text from Mike in North Carolina.
He says, there's 350 million people in the U.S., 1,000 respondents to a survey.
America's Demographic Shift 00:04:08
It's not true, America.
Yeah, I just would have to disagree.
I mean, I understand the reaction, but think of it like a blood test.
We don't have to take all your blood out to understand and run your labs on it.
We can take just a sample of it.
The sample of people works in theoretically the same way, conceptually the same way.
We obviously make sure that we're balanced in terms of demographics and political affiliation.
But again, I'd use the analogy of blood samples.
That's best for understanding polls.
Kyanna is in Cleveland, Ohio.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
I just, I had a comment on a lot of the polls being like, the guest is saying it's like nativism, nativism, nativism, and that nativism isn't like racism.
And I just, I need white people to admit, like, whether it's the Super Bowl halftime show or white Americans' views on immigration or like when they say, I don't recognize the country that I live in right now, like I just need them to admit, like, they're scared because they're white.
Okay.
And they're afraid of anything or anybody that doesn't look like them or talk like them.
This country is on pace to become a majority minority for the first time in its history around like 2050.
And white people see their power dwindling.
So they're doing everything they can from the White House to the local city's mayor's office.
They're doing everything they can to re-entrench their power.
And I just need white people all around the country to admit that because that's where the healing is going to start.
We cannot fix this until we acknowledge the root of what it is.
Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, it's a great point.
And it's a critical point of the debate of what's going on, those social forces that are shaping our world and more specifically our politics.
In the book, we talk about these long-term trends.
We talk about the changing racial composition.
But when you put all these factors together, it's nativism that basically swamps out all the other explanations.
That's not to say that racism isn't there.
That's not to say that authoritarianism isn't there.
It's not to say that populism isn't there.
But it's ultimately about nativism.
And I think that's critically important because the policy levers we have at our disposal to address the issue of nativism or more specifically immigration are more concrete.
We can come across and we can come to consensus on some sort of broad-based plan.
I already talked about the fact that Americans are nuanced on that.
Yes, there's racism.
There's always been racism here.
Racism has always been an element of our politics, not just today, but over the course of our history.
But when we understand the politics and the dynamics today, it's really about, it's really a politics of belonging, who is an American, who isn't, who should belong to Club America and who should not.
And we have no consensus on that issue today.
Because that always changes, and that's always changed over time.
I mean, in the past, Italian immigrants weren't considered white.
Italian immigrants weren't, the Irish weren't considered white.
And I think our book goes through the history of nativism in the 1840s and the 1890s and the 1910s.
And each of those times, there was some sort of consensus on a modification in respect to immigration, because immigration does change the composition of a population.
It does threaten certain groups over others.
It is highly traumatic to a society.
And again, I think if we, yes, racism is there, but if we focus on that, we're missing the bigger picture.
And the bigger picture has a solution, which would be a comprehensive consensus on the issue of immigration.
We got this from Alan in Hobart, Indiana on text.
He says, no one has ever polled me, ever.
No one has ever come to my door to do a poll.
Never been solicited for a poll.
Polling Paradox 00:05:33
Who are you polling exactly?
Just Democrat cities?
If so, it's not a true reflection.
Well, no, we're not.
And we have about the right, we have about the equal number of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents always in our sample.
America today is about one-third, one-third, one-third.
I think it's important to understand that a poll of a thousand is out of a thousand over 330 million people or a little bit less if you think of adults.
It's not sort of surprising that he's never been polled.
But if you've ever gotten a call on a cell phone and he's thought it was spam, it might be one of us pollsters.
So maybe we called him and he decided not to respond.
If he didn't respond, someone else like him probably responded.
Yes, so iPhone will say potential spam.
And we could be that.
That could be that.
It could be a legitimate pollster like myself on the other line waiting for you to talk to me and you just hang up.
And Gigi, Hillside, New Jersey, Democrat, go ahead, Gigi.
So my concern is, you know, when are we going to stop talking and dancing around the lack of affordability in this country, remove our focus on other countries, and funnel our focus on improving the lives of everyday Americans?
Well, that's the critical issue this year.
Americans are essentially worried about that.
They'll be selecting their rep. They'll be selecting their senator based upon those issues, based upon the issues of affordability.
I agree there's lots of noise out there, but when you poll after poll after poll, suggest that bread and butter issues are the driving issues of the day.
And if political actors, politicians, governments don't understand that, they'll be penalized on Election Day.
I want to ask you about consumer confidence in the U.S.
And I'll play you from a hearing last week.
This is Senator Pete Ricketts, a Republican of Nebraska, who asked Treasury Secretary Besant about what the Senate can do to help improve and raise low consumer confidence numbers.
Yet, despite all this progress, we're seeing consumer confidence is not really rebounding the way that the economy seems to be.
In your opinion, what more can we in the Senate be doing with regard to consumer confidence and making, you know, obviously we had 40-year high inflation under the Biden administration, but what more can we be doing in the Senate to be able to help out with confidence of consumers?
Other than telling consumers to turn off the MSNBC, a large part of it is a survey problem where Democrats vote very low, Republicans are more realistic, and then we end up what we're seeing.
What do you think?
Oh, it's always the instrument.
It's always either those doing the surveys or the individuals responding to the surveys.
Yes, there's a partisan aspect to consumer confidence today.
That is, I'm more confident in general if my party is in power.
We find that.
But overall, it's middling at best.
By the way, if you compare it to other countries in the G7, the United States is doing better than the other countries.
It is about ultimately not being able to make ends meet.
I think people, we don't have a lot of experience here in the United States with inflation.
I lived in Brazil for 10 years, in Latin America for 10 years.
We had a lot of inflation in countries there.
It takes a long, once you have control of it, it takes a long time to work itself out.
So you have high levels of cost.
The cost levels are high.
And that's what the average American's feeling today.
He or she might have a job, though it's a little bit fuzzy.
We're not quite sure.
Companies are not spending like they used to.
There's been a lot of laid offs.
But that said, a little fuzzy there, a little bit of uncertainty.
Where the real uncertainty is, is making ends meet.
When you do focus groups, you talk to people, they would not agree with the Secretary whatsoever.
They would say, two years ago, I spent $100 on these items.
Today I'm spending $120.
I don't have money at the end of the month.
I count my nickels and diams.
They might not necessarily know how to calculate the inflation rate, but they know what inflation and cost of living increases are.
Bob is a Republican in Arkansas.
Hi, Bob.
Hello.
Good morning.
My question for the gentleman is the way they select for the poll.
But the thing is, you know, I would ask them if the Democrats had won the election, would we have another five or ten million people in the country that are illegal?
I think the people and the way they, I don't think they're asking that on the poll.
So, you know, that's the way I feel.
And I don't have too much faith in the polls because they can be, you know, very selective.
Thank you.
Well, I think he reflects an underlying attitude here in the United States, but around the world, that the system is broken and no longer functions.
You know, parties and politicians don't care about the average person.
Institutions like the Institution of Polling and Pulsters can't be trusted.
I think that's kind of reflected in what the gentleman was.
You can continue to watch this online at our website, cspan.org.
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