NY Times Opinion: The Key Reason Trump's Poll Numbers Are Sagging, 2025-March-18 by Kristen Soltis Anderson

Shortly after the inauguration, I asked American voters how much of a priority they thought a range of policy moves should be for Mr. Trump. The very top of the list? “Reduce the cost of living.” Also high up on the list were actions on immigration, which explains why my polling has found that Mr. Trump’s immigration job approval remains positive even as his approval in other areas has grown weaker.

In contrast, “passing additional tariffs” and “firing large numbers of federal government employees” — the stuff of the headlines of the last few weeks — fall far down the rankings. Only one in four voters thought each of those items should be “one of the top priorities.” And while the numbers look more robust among Trump voters, fewer than half of them identified mass firings or tariffs as a top priority. Instead, Trump voter priorities looked just like voter priorities overall: reduce the cost of living, deport criminal illegal immigrants, secure the southern border.