Voters are broadly unhappy with the state of the nation, the condition of the economy and President Donald Trump’s job performance, according to the preliminary national results of CNN’s Voter Poll.
Roughly three-quarters of voters nationally say they feel dissatisfied or worse with the way things are going in the country, with around 4 in 10 describing themselves as angry.
There are two factors driving that unhappiness, the early results suggest: negative views of Trump and dissatisfaction with current economic conditions. How precisely those dynamics play out remains to be seen — particularly in some of the deeply Republican states that have become home to unexpectedly competitive Senate races.
Roughly 6 in 10 voters nationally disapprove of Trump’s job performance, with about half saying they disapprove strongly. About one-fifth of voters who backed Trump in 2024 now disapprove of his performance.
The share of voters who say inflation has caused them hardship is similar to where it stood in 2024. But this time, many voters lay the blame directly on Trump. Around two-thirds say they feel he has worsened economic conditions in the country, with most attributing higher costs directly to his policies, rather than factors outside of his control.
Most voters doubt that Trump has the right priorities and say he puts his own interests above those of the country. And despite the president’s exhortations to his base to vote as though he were on the ballot, less than a fifth of voters say their House vote was cast in support of Trump, with the rest saying either that they were voting in opposition to Trump or that he was not a factor in their decision.
Around three-quarters of voters call economic conditions bad, and roughly 9 in 10 say the cost of living was “crucial” or a major factor in their vote choice.
Asked to choose the most important issue facing the country, voters are most likely to say it’s the economy, followed by the state of democracy — a broad issue that often encompasses Democratic opposition to Trump. Relatively few call immigration, healthcare, foreign policy or crime their top concern.
The CNN Voter Poll, a successor to previous years’ exit polls, combines traditional in-person interviews at polling places on Election Day with tens of thousands of interviews conducted nationwide in the weeks before the election. That scope makes the polls a powerful tool for understanding the demographic profile and political views of voters in this year’s election. And their findings will eventually be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the results of the elections themselves.
Even so, exit polls are still polls, with margins for error — which means they’re most useful when treated as estimates , rather than precise measurements. That’s particularly true for the earliest numbers, which haven’t yet been adjusted to match final election results. Learn more about how this year’s surveys were conducted here .
Many of the early Voter Poll findings align with political dynamics seen through the midterm campaign. Voters’ unhappiness with the first two years of this Trump White House go beyond economic discontent, with most saying his administration has gone too far on immigration enforcement and that the US made the wrong decision in taking military action against Iran.
Voters’ unhappy views of Washington don’t stop with the executive branch. Views of Congress and the Supreme Court are also negative, and opinions of both political parties are underwater, the GOP more deeply so than the Democrats. In the initial results, Democrats hold a slight edge over the Republicans on trust to handle the economy — a striking number, given their disadvantage on this issue in past cycles — with roughly one-fifth saying they don’t trust either party.
And voters also express pessimism about the US more broadly, with most expecting life for the next generation to be worse than life today, and only about one-third saying the economic system is fair to most Americans.
METHODOLOGY |The CNN Voter Poll conducted by SSRS was conducted from October 19-November 3, and is expected to include a representative sample of approximately 100,000 voters nationwide. The Voter Poll combines data collected from verified registered voters online and by telephone, with data collected in-person at polling locations in 15 states. Data collected before Election Day includes both pre-election and Election Day voters and has been weighted by voters’ probability of turning out. Recontact interviews were conducted among people who could not be verified as having voted prior to Election Day to confirm their choices and turnout. Respondents could complete the poll in English or Spanish. Results for the full national sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups and in individual states.
