Trump's base keeps shrinking, plus polls on AI, Ebola, and more
Today, we’re spotlighting the May 29 - June 1, 2026 Economist/YouGov Poll.
Welcome to YouGov’s newsletter The Surveyor, with new polling data, insights, and charts on politics, life, and other topical issues — from our U.S. News team.
In this week’s Economist/YouGov poll:
Trump hits new lows with Independents as his bad job approval numbers continue
More expect AI to affect the economy negatively than positively, but Americans are split on how AI will impact their own lives
A majority of Americans believe Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his enemies
Plus polling on the Iran war, the economy, Ebola, Americans’ top issues, and a proposed $250 bill featuring Donald Trump’s picture.
Trump approval
A record-high 61% of Americans disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president according to the May 29 - June 1 Economist / YouGov Poll, more than had done so in any week across either of Trump’s terms. 35% of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of how Trump is handling his job as president — up slightly from 34% last week — while the 61% who disapprove is up from 59% last week. That’s a net job approval of -26, the same as last week and tied for the lowest Trump has received in either term.
Over the past three Economist / YouGov polls, Trump has averaged a -24 net job approval, also a record low.
Independents in particular have become more negative about Trump’s job handling: Only 21% approve, while 71% disapprove — a -50 net approval. That’s a record-low among Independents for either term. At this point in Trump’s first term, he had a -3 net job approval among Independents.
Trump’s job approval among Independents has fallen so low that the closest first-term comparison isn’t to Independents, whose net approval of Trump in his first term never fell below -30. Rather, Trump’s approval among Independents is close to how Democrats viewed Trump at the start of his first term, when he had a -54 net approval among Democrats (13% approve and 67% disapprove).
Low overall approval numbers for Trump coincide with record dissatisfaction about how Trump is handling two major issues: inflation and the war in Iran.
Only 24% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling inflation, while 72% disapprove — a net approval of -48 for this issue, the worst of his second term (his inflation handling wasn’t regularly asked about in his first term). Trump began his second term with positive net approval for his handling of inflation, but it quickly declined and has continued to fall. Americans have consistently given Trump worse marks for his handling of inflation than they have for the economy, foreign policy, immigration, and crime.
Americans see one highly visible price — that of gasoline — as rising. 49% say the price of gas is going up a lot where they live, and another 23% say it’s going up a little. Overall 72% of Americans say the price of gas is going up, while only 15% say it’s going down and 9% say it’s not changing. This is the 10th consecutive Economist / YouGov Poll dating back to mid-March in which at least two-thirds of Americans have said prices are rising.
Meanwhile 64% of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling the situation in Iran, up from 48% in January. Only 29% approve of how Trump’s handling Iran, down from 34% in January.
AI
Most Americans (65%) say that artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing too quickly, according to the May 29 - June 1 Economist / YouGov Poll. About one in five (22%) say it is advancing at about the right pace and almost no one (1%) thinks it is moving too slowly.
Majorities of Democrats (71%), Independents (59%), and Republicans (66%) say AI is advancing too quickly, though Republicans (28%) are a bit more likely than Democrats (20%) and Independents (19%) to say it is moving at about the right pace. Younger adults are slightly more likely than older Americans to say AI is moving at about the right pace: 28% of adults under 45 say AI is moving at about the right pace, while only 18% of older Americans say the same. Still, majorities in all age groups say AI is moving too quickly.
A similar question on the May 9 - 11 poll found that 71% of Americans say AI advancement is moving too fast and 2% say it is moving too slowly.
While most Americans think AI is advancing quickly, many still see it as less advanced than humans. More Americans say that AI’s thinking and reasoning abilities are currently worse than humans (43%) than say AI is about the same (21%) or better than humans (17%).
Democrats and Independents are more likely to rate AI as worse than humans than to rate it as about the same or better. But Republicans’ ratings are close to evenly split: 43% say AI is worse than humans, while 42% say it is about the same (24%) or better (18%).
There are more substantial differences in opinion between age groups. Nearly half of adults under 45 say that AI is about the same (27%) or better than humans (21%) at reasoning and thinking, more than the share who say it is worse than humans (38%). In contrast, nearly half (47%) of Americans 45 and older say AI is worse than humans at thinking and reasoning. Less than one-third say it is about the same (17%) or better (14%).
The Economist / YouGov Poll included five statements about AI, both supportive and critical of the technology, adapted from comments by Pope Leo XIV and prominent AI leaders and critics. Majorities of Americans agree with most of the statements. The statements were lightly edited and were not attributed to a specific person in the survey.
The largest share (83%) agree with a statement from the pope’s encyclical about AI on AI’s lack of ability to know what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean. A smaller majority (61%) agree with the pope’s claim that AI can be embraced to alleviate suffering as long as we do not abandon humanity’s capacity for relationship and love. Americans with favorable and unfavorable views of the pope agree with his ideas at similar rates. Since the statements were not attributed to Leo within the survey, this suggests that his ideas about AI are less polarizing than other aspects of his papacy.
Smaller majorities of Americans agree with two comments by CEOs of AI companies: 65% agree with Google’s Sundar Pichai that AI will open up new ways of doing things that we cannot even imagine today, and 54% agree with OpenAI’s Sam Altman that AI will change jobs in the same way that new technologies have affected work throughout history. Americans are much less likely to agree with a more alarming idea from AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, that if anybody builds an artificial superintelligence, everyone on Earth will die. About one in five (22%) Americans agree with this claim while half (50%) disagree.
While most Americans don’t see AI as an existential threat, they are much less likely to think that AI will have positive effects on the economy than to think its effects will be negative. 41% of Americans think AI’s effects on the economy will be more negative than positive or entirely negative. Only 17% think the effects will be more positive than negative or entirely positive. Americans are more likely to have a positive view of how AI might affect them personally. Nearly equal shares say AI’s impact on them will be somewhat or very positive as say it will be somewhat or very negative (37% vs. 35%). Past YouGov polling has found a similar pattern on many other topics: Americans tend to have a more positive outlook about their own lives than about the lives of other Americans.
Republicans and younger adults are particularly likely to have positive outlooks on AI. Nearly half (46%) of Republicans expect AI to have a positive impact on their lives personally, while only 28% think it will have a negative impact. In contrast, Democrats and Independents are more likely to say AI will have a negative than a positive impact on their personal lives. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents are all more likely to expect AI’s effects on the economy to be more negative than positive, but Republicans are more closely split on this question than Democrats or Independents.
Younger adults are more likely than older Americans to expect that AI will have positive effects on their personal lives and the economy. Adults under 45 are more likely to say AI will have a positive impact on their personal lives than to say it will have a negative impact (45% vs. 32%). The opposite is true of Americans 45 and older (31% vs. 38%). While both groups are less likely to say AI will have positive effects on the economy than to say it will have negative effects, the gap is much larger among those 45 and older (14% vs. 45%) than among adults under 45 (20% vs. 36%).
There’s little consensus on how much AI will impact Americans’ lives: 19% say they expect it will impact their lives a great deal, 33% expect it to have some impact, 26% expect it will affect their lives a little, and 12% think it will have no impact. Younger adults are more likely than older Americans to expect that AI will have a major impact on their lives. Democrats are more likely than Independents and Republicans to say AI will have a great deal or some impact on their lives, while Republicans are more likely than Independents and Democrats to say it will have little or no impact.
Closer to home, many Americans express discomfort with one of the major local impacts of AI development: data centers. The Economist / YouGov Poll defined data centers as large facilities that house computer servers for storing and transmitting data and found that a majority (60%) of Americans would somewhat or strongly oppose building data centers in their communities. Only one-quarter (24%) would somewhat or strongly support such construction. Majorities of Democrats (64%) and Independents (63%) oppose local data center construction, as do about half (52%) of Republicans. Only one-third (34%) of Republicans would support local data-center construction, and even smaller shares of Democrats (22%) and Independents (18%) say the same.
Adults under 30 are more likely than older Americans to support local data-center construction, but this position is in the minority in all age groups. About one-third (32%) of adults under 30 support local data-center construction, while about one in five (22%) older Americans say the same. In contrast, half (50%) of adults under 30 oppose the construction, as do 62% of older Americans.
Outside of their local areas, more Americans see downsides than upsides in data centers. About half (48%) of Americans say new data-center construction is bad for the country, about twice the share who say it is good for the country (22%).
Trump and Carroll
More Americans believe E. Jean Carroll than Donald Trump (46% vs. 27%) in regards to her accusation that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, according to the May 29 - June 1 Economist / YouGov Poll; 27% of people are not sure. A majority (83%) of Democrats believe Carroll while only 4% believe Trump; 65% of Republicans believe Trump and only 5% believe Carroll. Far more Independents believe Carroll than believe Trump (52% vs. 14%). Opinions on who is telling the truth also differ by gender, especially among Republicans: 73% of Republican men but only 58% of Republican women believe Trump over Carroll. However, only 5% of Republican men and 6% of Republican women believe Carroll; Republican women are far more likely than Republican men to say they are unsure (36% vs. 22%).
More strongly or somewhat approve than disapprove of juries in New York awarding Carroll $88.3 million in damages in her suit against Trump for sexual assault and defamation (48% vs. 30%). About as many disapprove as approve of having the Department of Justice investigate Carroll for perjury (41% vs. 39%).
A majority (56%) of Americans say Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, while only 25% say he isn’t. Almost all Democrats say Trump is (87%, vs. 3% who say he isn’t), as do most Independents (61% vs. 14%).
Most Republicans say Trump isn’t using the Justice Department to go after his enemies (21% say he is and 61% say he isn’t), but Republicans who aren’t MAGA supporters are evenly split (43% vs. 41%). Republicans who are MAGA supporters overwhelmingly say Trump isn’t going after enemies with the Justice Department (14% vs. 70%).
Quick Takes
68% of Americans say the U.S. should make a deal to end the war in Iran as quickly as possible, while 11% say it shouldn’t
But this overwhelming support for peace can weaken once specific details of a deal come into play. The Economist and YouGov asked Americans who said the U.S. should end the war as quickly as possible about a peace deal that doesn’t require Iran to give up its enriched uranium
Only 34% of Americans favor the U.S. making such a deal now, while 37% say the U.S. shouldn’t — the 11% who previously said the U.S. shouldn’t make a deal, plus 26% of Americans who had said the U.S. should make a deal as soon as possible but don’t like this one
Only 9% of Americans think it’s very likely or almost certain that the U.S. and Iran will reach a deal in the next two weeks, while 34% say the odds of such a deal are about 50-50, and 57% say it’s either unlikely (33%) or very unlikely (25%)
44% of Americans think it’s very or somewhat likely that the Ebola outbreak in East Africa could spread to the U.S., while 40% think it’s unlikely
A majority of Americans are not too worried (38%) or not worried at all (32%) about personally experiencing Ebola
82% of Americans support compulsory scanning of people arriving in the U.S. from countries affected by Ebola
68% want World Cup soccer players from African countries affected by Ebola to be tested before arriving, while 22% think there should be contact tracing for everyone they interact with, and 16% think they should wear masks at all times except while playing
20% of Americans say the economy is either excellent (3%) or good (17%), while 76% say it’s either fair (34%) or poor (42%)
32% of Americans say inflation/prices is their most important issue, close to the highest level ever recorded in Economist / YouGov Polls and more than say jobs and the economy (15%), health care (10%), civil rights (6%), taxes and government spending (6%), or immigration (6%)
Final Chart
This newsletter was written by David Montgomery, Taylor Orth, Alexander Rossell Hayes, and Carl Bialik
See a version of this report on the YouGov website, plus the toplines and crosstabs for the May 29 - June 1, 2026 Economist/YouGov Poll
Methodology: The poll was conducted among 1,604 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, geographic region, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 33% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3.5%.
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