Taking a wrong turn
Welcome to YouGov's weekly newsletter The Surveyor, with new polling data, insights, and charts on politics, life, and other topical issues — from our U.S. News team.
This week, we're spotlighting surveys about Elon Musk and Donald Trump, sense of direction, which states Americans have visited, Trump's commitment to his policies, vacation, Mark Carney, and first names.
Elon and Don
A nasty and public political split erupted Thursday between President Donald Trump and his former supporter and adviser Elon Musk. YouGov has polls in the field right now exploring how Americans see the spat, and we've already conducted a couple of snap polls that suggest Musk is getting support from neither Republicans nor Democrats.
First, we asked Americans whether they would side with Trump or Musk. Most Democrats (80%) and Independents (59%) say they'd side with neither man. But Republicans overwhelmingly said they'd back Trump (70%) over Musk (6%), with 13% choosing neither.
We also re-asked a question from last week — whether Americans say Musk has done more to help or hurt the country in his work for the government. Over just the week between May 29 and June 6, the share of Republicans who say Musk mostly helped the country has fallen from 72% to 64%.
We'll share more detailed findings about this in next week's newsletter!
Finding your way
I like maps more than the average person. That's an understatement, really — I have maps as wall art, atlases on my bookshelves, a half-dozen Google Maps tabs open in my browser, software for making maps on my computer, and always enjoyed the maps at the front of fantasy novels as much or more than the actual story.
All that is to say that I recognize I have something of a nonstandard relationship with cartography. I can tell you approximate routes on how to get most places in my city without looking them up; when I give directions I'm more likely to say "turn north onto Main" than "turn left onto Main"; I'm more likely to look at a route overview than to activate turn-by-turn directions.
But just how weird does this make me? Fortunately, that's a question that someone working for a survey research firm is uniquely suited to answer.
Late last month, I polled 1,181 U.S. adult citizens about their sense of direction and navigational skills. The big picture is perhaps encouraging: More than half of Americans say they're either good (37%) or excellent (16%) at navigating without GPS. Another 27% say they're fair, and 17% say they're either poor (10%) or terrible (7%).
What's even more interesting is the differences in who says they're good or bad at navigation. Men and Americans 45 or older are more likely to say they're excellent or good than are women or adults under 45. College graduates are slightly more likely to say they're good at navigating, but the difference by education is smaller than the difference by age or gender. (All groups — men, women, younger, and older Americans — are more likely to say they're good at navigating than that they're bad at it, the difference is in the degree.)
I found and included in my poll an academic metric for measuring sense of direction — the 15 questions on the Santa Barbara Sense-of-Direction Scale, originally published in 2002 by a team led by Professor Mary Hegarty of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Around half of the questions are structured so that agreeing reflects better navigational abilities, such as "I am very good at reading maps." The rest are reversed, so agreeing reflects worse sense of direction, such as "I very easily get lost in a new city."
On all 15 questions, Americans 45 or older are more likely to indicate better skill with directions than are Americans 18 to 44.
Note that there are some young people and old people who view themselves as having good senses of direction, and some young and old people who say they have bad senses of direction. These questions merely measure broad tendencies. They also only measure self-reported senses of direction, rather than actually testing ability.
Even more dramatic than the age splits are the gender splits. Men are consistently more likely than women to say they're good at directions. For example, 73% of men and 53% of women strongly or somewhat agree that "I can usually remember a new route after I have only traveled it once." 61% of men and 36% of women say they tend to think in terms of cardinal directions. 25% of men and 51% of women agree that they "usually let someone else do the navigational planning for long trips."
That split on letting someone else do navigation planning got me thinking about navigational abilities within relationships. So, limiting the data to people in relationships, I asked people to rate their partners' navigational abilities as well as their own. I then compared how they rated their own abilities and their partner's, and categorized them by whether they thought they were more skilled at navigating than their partner, equally skilled, or less skilled.
Our sample size wasn't large enough to report on same-sex relationships, but looking just at people who identify as heterosexual and are in relationships, 38% say they're more skilled at navigating than their partner, 35% say they're equally skilled, and 27% say they're less skilled.
The fact that more people say they are better at navigating than say their partner is implies mismatched perceptions or a certain amount of self-aggrandizement.
There is a sizable gender split. Among heterosexual men in relationships, 55% say they're better at navigating than their partners, and just 7% say their partner is better. Among heterosexual women in relationships, 20% say they're better at navigating, and 47% say their partner is better.
Are you a maphead, confidently navigating through your environment? Or is your sense of direction even worse than my sense of sight? Let us know in the comments! And remember that if you want to get a chance to participate in surveys like this one, you can sign up to join YouGov's panel!
Charting opinions
Which states have Americans visited?
The average American has visited 16 states besides the one where they currently live. 32% of Americans 65 or older say they've visited at least 30 states, compared to just 5% of adults under 30. College graduates are also more likely to be well-traveled; 25% of them have visited at least 30 states, compared to 11% of Americans without college degrees, according to the survey. (David Montgomery)
Quick takes
Vacation: 21% of Americans say they have taken on debt to pay for a summer vacation
Diddy: 6% of Americans say that Trump should pardon Sean "Diddy" Combs if he is found guilty; 79% say he should not
First names: 42% of Americans say they love their first name; 31% like their first name, 19% are neutral about it, 4% dislike it, and 2% hate it
TACO: Does Donald Trump follow through with his policies? 62% of Americans say he follows through with his immigration policy, 43% say he follows through with his economic policy, and 41% say he follows through with his trade policy
Elsewhere
Polling partnerships
Yahoo News + YouGov on separating art from the artist and skincare
The Economist + YouGov on the budget, a 2026 midterms preview, race relations, Democratic leaders, Elon Musk, and summer travel
Polling abroad
Net favourability towards Israel reaches new lows in key Western European countries (YouGov UK)
Canadian Liberal voters prioritized U.S.-Canada relations in the 2025 federal election, while Conservative voters focused more on fiscal policy (YouGov Canada)
Liberals and Conservatives in Canada split on Mark Carney and the country's direction after the election (YouGov Canada)
Polling in the press
Democrats slam Trump’s new travel ban (Economist)
Our Regression on Gender Is a Tragedy, Not Just a Political Problem (New York Times)
Poll: Republicans Side With Trump Over Musk, While Democrats Want Neither (Wall Street Journal)
5 Books on Navigating Family Estrangement (New York Times)
12 Pride Month 2025 Collections from Brands We Can Actually Get Behind (Rolling Stone)
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Taylor Orth contributed to this newsletter