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President Donald Trump’s net approval rating improved 5 points over the past week following a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Iran that came after the U.S. military’s bombing of several nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic. Half of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance (down from 53% last week), while 47% approve (up from 45%), giving him his best approval ratings since late May alongside growing approval of his handling of national security and the latest Middle East tensions (much more below). | That’s the share of voters who said they had seen, read or heard “a lot” about Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a high point in our tracking. The bill remains unpopular with voters (keep reading below for more on that), and as of this moment, isn’t popular with enough Senate Republicans, either. As the chamber’s vote-a-rama nears its 24th hour, “Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) haven’t yet been convinced to vote for the sprawling legislation,” Punchbowl News writes, leaving Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) short of a vote given opposition from Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). | More than half of voters nationwide (56%) said they had heard “a lot” or “some” about Zohran Mamdani's victory in the Democratic primary election for New York City mayor, with the initial story breaking through to more Democrats (62%) than Republicans (51%). Republicans are trying to villainize the self-described democratic socialist. Trump threatened to cut New York City off from federal funds if he “doesn’t behave himself” should he be elected, The Guardian noted. Reuters pointed to unease with Mamdani among New York Democrats such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, all of whom are yet to endorse him. |
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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING THIS WEEK |
OBBB If Senate Republicans reach a deal to advance Trump’s big bill, things could move fast to the House, where the Rules Committee is set to return midday today to prepare the legislation for the full chamber, which is expected to return tomorrow. As Trump pushes for full passage by July 4, Punchbowl News also wrote today that House conservatives are not sold on the legislation as it stands even as the White House presses ahead arguing that it “includes the bulk of Trump’s legislative agenda.” Trade The European Union's trade chief is set to meet tomorrow and Thursday with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as the world readies for Trump’s July 9 deadline to ink deals with Washington to avoid higher tariffs, according to Reuters. The New York Times expects “what is likely to emerge over the next two weeks is a deal that does not satisfy either side’s stated goals” and is “more of a rough outline than a full-fledged agreement.” Israel talks Trump is poised to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday for talks about a cease-fire and hostage agreement to end his war with Hamas, The Associated Press reported, following lower-level meetings with the Israeli minister for strategic affairs this week. Per Fox News, ending Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is “a crucial step in expanding Trump’s ambitions to bring new nations into the Abraham Accords,” though the president hasn’t been clear about which countries are interested in normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel. 2026 moves Gov. Roy Cooper is leaning toward a bid for the Democratic nomination for Senate in North Carolina following Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ weekend announcement that he will not run for re-election, according to Axios. On the Republican side, all eyes are on Lara Trump, though Axios added that three freshman lawmakers — Reps. Pat Harrigan, Tim Moore and Brad Knott — are also interested in the contest should she not run. And in Georgia, Punchbowl News reported that Republican Rep. Mike Collins is “inching closer to launching a Senate campaign” as the party looks for a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff next year. Two candidates in the race already, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and state insurance commissioner John King, have failed to gain much traction. |
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A MESSAGE FROM MORNING CONSULT |
Tracking Public Opinion of Trump's Washington Morning Consult is tracking what voters across the country think about how President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are governing the United States ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Each week, we’ll update this page with fresh and timely data on all of the major questions facing Washington. See the data here. |
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Public sentiment about the Republican trifecta’s big legislative package remains about as unpopular as ever as legislators race to get the measure to Trump’s desk by July 4. According to our June 27-29 survey, 50% of voters oppose and 36% support the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” in line with our previous six weeks of polling. |
Shares of voters who support or oppose the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” |
As has been the case in our previous surveys, Democratic voters are more likely to oppose the legislation than Republicans are to support it (74% to 65%), with Democrats far more likely to “strongly” oppose the measure than Republicans are to “strongly” support it (59% to 35%). Our latest survey shows more Americans are turning into the sausage-making process: 38% of voters say they’ve seen, read or heard “a lot” about the bill, a high point in our ongoing tracking. However, there are still signs that the news of the day continues to overshadow coverage efforts about the bill. (For comparison, 52% said they’d consumed a lot of information about Trump’s Iran strikes.) Beyond the bill in general, our latest survey suggests even fewer voters have heard “a lot” about many of its individual components. For example, just about a quarter of voters said they’d heard a lot about a provision that would eliminate taxes on tipped income, and 1 in 5 have heard the same about ending taxes on overtime pay, which are among the bill’s most popular and best known provisions. On the other side of the coin, even fewer said they have heard the same about provisions targeting Medicaid (17%) or that would raise taxes on colleges and universities (16%), which are both unpopular with more voters than not. This has allowed lawmakers some space to craft the measure without as much public pressure as might be expected back home. But as we look toward the midterm elections next year, public opinion is already inclined to lean Democrats’ way on the overall package on top of the declining trust in the GOP to handle a range of issues, though the GOP does have a chance to elevate the more popular pieces of the package that voters just haven’t heard much about. |
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Amid questions about just how damaging the U.S. military’s bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities were, few voters seem to buy Trump’s claims that Tehran’s nuclear program was obliterated. |
Shares of voters who say the U.S. military’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear program … |
The bulk of the electorate (44%) said they think the strikes “damaged, but did not completely destroy Iran's nuclear program,” twice the share who said it was completely destroyed by the U.S. military bombing. Notably, Republican voters were split evenly on the question, while the largest shares of Democrats and independent voters aligned with the more moderate assessment of the outcome of the attacks. Over the weekend, The Washington Post reported that intercepted communications showed senior Iranian officials discussing that the “attack was less devastating than they had expected,” and wondering why they “were not as destructive and extensive as they had anticipated.” It followed more public skepticism from lawmakers on Capitol Hill raising doubt that the operation was as successful as the administration has insisted, something the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency reiterated when he said Tehran could restart enriching uranium “in a matter of months,” per CNN. The full answer will likely take more time to figure out amid big questions — detailed by The New York Times last week — about where Iran’s enriched uranium actually is. But for the president’s domestic politics in the shorter term, our latest survey suggests he doesn’t need to oversell his actions in order to claim a victory. More voters approve than disapprove of Trump’s handling of recent events in the conflict between Israel and Iran (49% to 43%), effectively a reversal of what we found last weekend, before the announcement of a cease-fire between Israel and Iran. As we noted at the top, Trump just posted his best net approval rating since May alongside the big boost in sentiment about his handling of national security, specifically. Trump has long showed that his instinct is to exaggerate, but at least on this issue of foreign policy (where the average American's knowledge doesn’t run too deep), voters are giving him credit, even if they aren’t going along with his boisterous claims. |
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