On "Forbes Newsroom," Matt Taglia, Senior Director of Emerson College Polling, discussed a new Emerson poll showing the top candidates in the 2028 presidential election.
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.
00:06Joining me now is Matt Taglia, Senior Director of Emerson College Polling.
00:10Matt, thanks so much for joining me.
00:12Thanks for having me, Brittany.
00:14Emerson College Polling has their new national survey out for the month of June,
00:19and there is a lot of good data in here looking at both Democrats and Republicans.
00:23So I do want to start with the standard bearer of the GOP, President Donald Trump,
00:28six months into his second term. What is his approval rating?
00:33Yeah, Brittany, so his approval rating for the first time since he took office is now negative,
00:39only just though. So he's 45 percent approved, 46 percent disapprove.
00:46If we look at independents, they disapprove by about 12 points now.
00:51They've been in the disapprove category, but that's moved a little bit further now.
00:54This has been sort of a consistent trajectory, I think, since January.
01:01We've seen his approval numbers tick down slightly and his disapproved numbers come up.
01:06So it's just continuing that trajectory.
01:10Who knows if it levels out?
01:12But for now, at least, he's about one point underwater.
01:16One point underwater.
01:18That's not a trajectory a president wants to see themselves go in,
01:21especially six months into their second term.
01:24I mean, what's contributing to this?
01:26When you're looking at the data points here, what demographics are going the other way now?
01:32Yeah, and I think that independent number is definitely important.
01:35Those 12 points who say, you know, by 12 points saying that they disapprove.
01:40If we look a little bit further down at the right direction, wrong track number,
01:45I think that's pretty interesting because we've got 47% who say that the country is headed in the right direction
01:51versus 53% who say it's on the wrong track.
01:55Again, you know, we see it's a 42-59 split among independents.
02:01We didn't give a third option like we do for the approved-disapproved numbers here.
02:06So folks are really forced into this binary choice.
02:10So I do think that that's a little bit illuminating here, that six-point differential.
02:14I think it's just overall, you know, beyond independence, beyond partisanship.
02:19I think overall with inflation, with the economy, with world war in the news,
02:26you know, we're seeing a little bit of melt here for President Trump
02:31and for perceptions of the country's trajectory overall.
02:35And I know President Trump is in a really unique position because he's in his second term,
02:40but he had his first and second term broken up with four years of Biden in the middle.
02:46So how does this stack up to other modern presidents?
02:49Is this typical for them to see a dip six months in, them now be underwater a little bit?
02:56Yeah, I think that that is fairly typical to see a little bit of a dip.
03:01It's very dependent upon the presidency.
03:03You know, with George W. Bush, it was kind of the opposite we saw after his presidency and 9-11.
03:10That's when his approval numbers really took off with folks rallying around the flag, so to speak.
03:17You look at Biden, and I think the real turning point was the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
03:21That was when his disapproval number really, really, really shot up, rather, and his approval number tanked.
03:28And he never really recovered from that.
03:30So we're not seeing some dramatic change in approval.
03:35I would say that this is sort of a typical presidency in that sense.
03:40But we're not seeing massive response to some of the things that have happened over the course of the Trump presidency so far.
03:48So maybe that changes, but for now, I think that this looks like a fairly normal trajectory
03:53and just a little bit of disapproval rising among everyone, so to speak.
04:01And I wonder if that disapproval translates party-wide, because as we know right now,
04:06the House, the Senate, and the presidency are all united under Republican leadership.
04:11So looking ahead to the midterms in 2026,
04:14what party is in a better position now, Democrats or Republicans?
04:18Yeah, so right now, Democrats do have the lead on the congressional generic ballot.
04:25So about three points separate Democrats and Republicans when we ask who you would support for Congress,
04:32a generic Democrat or a generic Republican.
04:34That hasn't changed too much over the course of the past six weeks or so.
04:39We've seen sort of consistently about a three-point lead.
04:42We see independents breaking for Democrats by about 10 points.
04:47And then if we look at the generic presidential ballot, it's actually interesting there.
04:51It's tied, 42-42.
04:54Again, that's thanks to independents.
04:56So I think heading into the midterms, Democrats seem to have a little bit of an advantage here.
05:01But beyond that, it sort of remains to be seen, I think.
05:06And I want to talk about the beyond that, to 2028, to those presidential candidates.
05:12And many saw that the results from the Democratic primary in the New York City mayoral race are a case study of where the left wants to go.
05:20And based on the results Tuesday night, it's seemingly more left because a progressive did come out on top there.
05:26There are obviously a few caveats to this race because New York City is a very liberal city and that it was an off year in terms of elections.
05:34But you asked Democratic voters, you asked them about a slew of candidates.
05:38Who would you want to see as their Democratic nominee?
05:41What were the results?
05:44Brittany, you're right.
05:45We saw some indication of maybe where part of the party is going this past week.
05:53But when we asked that question nationally, who folks want to see as the next leader of the party, as the presidential nominee in 2028, Democrats nationwide don't necessarily agree with that.
06:06So we have Pete Buttigieg at 16 percent, followed by Kamala Harris at 12, Gavin Newsom also at 12.
06:14And then all unders or all others are under 10 percent.
06:18So, you know, I don't think that this necessarily speaks to the progressive wing of the party.
06:24I wouldn't label most of these candidates as progressives.
06:27Now, if we look a little bit further down, it is interesting.
06:30We see that AOC is at 7 percent.
06:34So she does OK here, tied with Josh Shapiro, also at 7 percent.
06:39Now, AOC leads with those who are under 30 years of age.
06:44That's maybe not surprising.
06:46We're going to see the most progressive folks in sort of that age bracket.
06:51And then Newsom and Buttigieg do best with those who are older, over the age of 60, roughly.
06:57So, again, I don't see a groundswell for progressive candidates here.
07:01But I do think that AOC sort of holds her own, at least, in this test ballot.
07:07And I know that Emerson has asked this question before, but have you seen a shift since when you last asked about the 2028 presidential Democratic nominees?
07:17Yeah, so the last time that we asked, we did ask an open-ended question.
07:23So folks had to name who they would like to see as the Democratic nominee.
07:27And Kamala Harris was overwhelmingly the first choice for voters.
07:33That's no longer the case.
07:35So it is a little bit of a surprise to see Pete Buttigieg on top here with 16 percent and Harris below that with 12 percent.
07:44So, yeah, we have definitely seen a shift.
07:47I think some folks are moving beyond pure name recognition, although, you know, all of these folks do have fairly high name recognition.
07:56But also moving beyond that 2024 ballot and the nominee then, which was Kamala Harris,
08:03I think folks are just now starting to think about who else could potentially lead the party into 2028.
08:09I think it's really interesting that you're saying kind of everyone pump the brakes a little bit on Democrats wanting to go fully to the left,
08:18fully progressive, as progressive as you can, because this poll certainly isn't indicating that Pete Buttigieg certainly isn't the most progressive person on this list.
08:27Neither is Vice President Kamala Harris.
08:29Neither is Governor Gavin Newsom.
08:31Are there any other takeaways that you're seeing here in this?
08:35If you could read the tea leaves a little bit for us.
08:39Yeah.
08:40You know, the obvious caveat here is that it's extremely early.
08:45We still have several years to go until we even get into the nomination process.
08:49But I do find it interesting that Pete Buttigieg is on top here.
08:53I think he has maintained some media presence over the past several months.
09:00Gavin Newsom obviously has done the same.
09:02And I think that that has paid off for the both of them.
09:06As far as reading the tea leaves a little bit further down, you know, I think it's gonna be tough for some of these other folks to break out.
09:13I think we're seeing some fatigue with Bernie Sanders.
09:17And I think that he is probably pulling, nevertheless, a little bit of support from the more progressive candidates who are on the list.
09:24But anything could happen, you know, that we this is traditionally very, very difficult to predict at this time.
09:35And we could very well see a candidate that's not even on this list come out and have a groundbreaking campaign.
09:43And I'm sure that this will be an interesting conversation to look back on at the end of November of 2028.
09:51But I want to turn now to the GOP.
09:53We know that President Trump can't run again because this is his second term.
09:57So it's an open field.
09:59Who are some of the frontrunners there?
10:02And this is maybe a little bit less interesting because the GOP is more so consolidated in their vote right now.
10:12So Vice President J.D. Vance receives 46 percent.
10:16Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, at 12 percent.
10:20And then everyone else is in the single digits here.
10:24So, you know, I think that J.D. Vance, high name ID, folks seem to generally like him in the GOP.
10:33And so this is really his race to lose right now.
10:36Again, we're very early.
10:37Anything could change.
10:38You know, 2015, when when the GOP nomination was just kicking off, there were a lot of folks in the field who were polling very well and ended up either dropping out for Iowa or doing very poorly.
10:56So anything could happen.
10:58But right now, this is J.D. Vance's race to lose.
11:00And it's interesting, based on this poll, it seems like a lot of voters here see President Trump passing that MAGA torch to J.D. Vance and they think that he would make a good president.
11:14Has this changed since Emerson asked the question back in November?
11:18Not too much.
11:22Folks then named J.D. Vance as one of their top choices.
11:27The difference between our polling earlier in the year and now is that we don't have Trump included here.
11:37A lot of folks, you know, again, that was an open ended question.
11:40So folks had to name who they wanted to see as the Republican nominee.
11:45And a lot of voters said Trump.
11:47So that's the big difference here.
11:49We don't have him on the list.
11:52We don't anticipate that the Constitution will change.
11:55President Trump has said that he does not intend to try to seek a third term in some capacity.
12:02So I think that's the big shift here.
12:04We're seeing that the field is cleared for J.D. Vance.
12:08And when you're looking at both the Democratic and Republican nominee questions, how much does the undecided vote play a factor in here?
12:20Well, I think it plays a major factor.
12:23There's potentially millions and millions of votes on the table for both sides.
12:29You know, it's going to be really dependent upon state, though, and dependent upon how the states decide to conduct their caucuses and primaries and how the parties dictate that and where that placement is.
12:43There's so many unknowns right now.
12:45You could have a breakout candidate in Iowa if Iowa's first, but that would be a totally different candidate from South Carolina or from New Hampshire or Nevada.
12:54So there's a lot there's a lot on the table right now.
12:58The possibilities are endless.
13:00I expect most of the voters to be either undecided or weak in their support for any one candidate at this time.
13:09I think that's especially true with the Democratic Party, where we don't see anyone breaking about 20 percent.
13:16And, you know, we don't have a sitting Democratic president.
13:21So leadership is very much in question.
13:24Anything could happen here.
13:26You did also pull a slew of other questions that I do want to touch on really quickly.
13:30Let's start with immigration, which seems to be a real highlight for President Trump when it comes to his polling.
13:36Issues regarding restricting birthright citizenship and the way the administration is handling deportations continue to be real flashpoints and concerns.
13:46They're the more controversial parts of the immigration conversation.
13:49What do voters think about these two facets here?
13:54Yeah, birthright citizenship was kind of interesting.
13:57So we asked whether folks support or oppose continuing to provide birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants.
14:11Anyone who was born in the country receiving birthright citizenship, 68 percent overall say that they want to see birthright citizenship continue.
14:22Just 32 percent say no.
14:24And when you look at those demographics, Democrats and independents heavily in favor of continuing birthright citizenship.
14:31But even Republicans are split.
14:33Forty nine percent want to continue birthright citizenship.
14:36Fifty one percent want to end it.
14:39Younger voters are also more likely to support birthright citizenship.
14:44But overall, I think we see there is not support for ending birthright citizenship.
14:50Even Republicans are split.
14:51That is not a policy that people want to see.
14:54Press forward.
14:56And what about deportations?
14:58Yeah, we look at deportations a little bit more split here.
15:02Fifty two percent say that the Trump administration has gone too far in deporting undocumented immigrants.
15:10Twenty five percent say it's about right.
15:12And then 23 percent say that the administration has not gone far enough.
15:16Now, as you might expect, there are partisan splits here, but only 20 percent of Republicans say that the administration has gone too far versus 80 percent for Democrats and 56 percent for independents.
15:29So there's definite disapproval on the left among Democrats, also among independents of the deportations.
15:39They say it's gone too far.
15:41But overall split between those who say that it's gone too far or that it's about right or they'd actually like to see more in terms of deportations.
15:50I do now want to take our sights internationally and talk about some foreign affairs because President Trump, when he was campaigning for the second term, he famously said he was going to end the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day.
16:04That war still rages on. He also said he was going to end the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, and they are still at war.
16:12Just over this past weekend, there were questions about a potential World War Three questions of is the United States going to get involved in a war in the Middle East after the U.S. dropped bombs on multiple Iranian sites?
16:24What do people think? Do people think that we are going to enter a war under President Trump's presidency?
16:29So we asked two questions here. First, in terms of specifically Israel and Iran, whether folks believed that there would be peace or war in the next few weeks.
16:40And there's a split here. Twenty eight percent say that there will be peace in the next few weeks.
16:46Thirty percent expect a major war between the two countries.
16:49We also asked about whether there would be a world war in the next four years, which we've asked about previously.
16:55And 52 percent expect there to be a world war. They think it's either somewhat or very likely.
17:01That's a two point increase since March. And we see that Republicans track a little bit more towards that less likely category.
17:12My last question to you, the Fourth of July is right around the corner.
17:16Are people feeling particularly patriotic this year?
17:19And I wouldn't say that they're feeling particularly patriotic this year.
17:24Thirty nine percent say that the Trump presidency has strengthened their feelings of patriotism versus 27 percent who say it's weakened and 34 percent who say it's had no effect.
17:35As you might imagine, there is a partisan split here.
17:37But almost 20 percent of Democrats say that the Trump presidency has strengthened their feelings of patriotism.
17:44Most voters under 50 say that it's had no effect.
17:48So, you know, I don't think that there's been a major change here in terms of patriotism.
17:54But we do have a plurality that say that it has strengthened their feelings towards the country, towards their own patriotism.
18:02Matt Taglia, I appreciate the conversation per usual.
18:06There's a lot of good and interesting data in here.
