Donald Trump Is Losing Ground On His Strongest Issue

President Donald Trump has lost ground on immigration, a new poll from Reuters/Ipsos has found.

The poll showed that 40 percent of registered voters said that Republicans had the better approach on immigration policy, compared to 38 percent who chose Democrats.

That percentage point spread is the lowest of Trump’s second term in office. By contrast, Republicans led by 26 points in January 2025, after Trump was inaugurated.

The White House has consistently rejected the idea that Trump’s approval numbers reflect weakness in his presidency.

“No other President in history has accomplished more for the American people than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a previous statement to Newsweek.

“The President has already made historic progress not only in America but around the world, and this is just the beginning as his agenda continues taking effect.”

Republican immigration policy has been more popular than that of the Democrats through Trump’s second term and has seen a sharp fall in border crossings and a sustained nationwide crackdown, ordered by Trump.

However, the second term has seen a number of high-profile issues related to immigration, including deadly confrontations, a rise in deaths in custody and a surge in detainees, including children, impacting public opinion on overall policy.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted ​online over four days and published on August 17. It included responses from 1,166 U.S. adults nationwide. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points in either direction.

Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment via email.

When Trump returned to office in January of 2025, 48 percent of Americans approved of his handling of immigration, according to Ipsos polling.

Hardline immigration policies were key in Trump’s successful bid for re-election in 2024, when he promised to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out what he described as the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.

By June of that year, Reuters/Ipsos polling showed a four-point drop, down to 44 percent.

In June of 2025, widespread protests broke out in Los Angeles after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided locations in the region. Those protests marked the most significant resistance to Trump’s immigration policy at the time.

In response, Trump federalized the California National Guard and called for 2,000 guard members to deploy against the city under Joint Task Force 51.

The move was widely criticized at the time, including by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who sued Trump over the federalization. Newsom said that local law enforcement was already mobilized and said the presence of the National Guard was "purposefully inflammatory" and would "escalate tensions.”

The anti-ICE protests in L.A. inspired similar action in other cities, including New York City, Chicago and Dallas.

Support dropped further in February of 2026, amidst widespread fallout in response to the ICE operation, Metro Surge. That operation, which had been in part tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents, focused on the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota.

In a period of less than three weeks in that operation, two U.S. citizens were fatally shot: Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, by ICE and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, by Border Patrol.

Nationwide protests erupted in response, and Trump’s immigration policies hit the lowest level they had since he returned to the White House, with 38 percent of respondents saying that he was doing a good job on immigration.

The new poll from Ipsos/Reuters follows a separate fatal ICE shooting.

In July, an ICE agent fatally shot a motorist, a 25-year-old Colombian man named Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. That shooting marked at least the ninth death since Trump began his immigration crackdown.

Concerns have also been raised about deaths in ICE Custody.

In 2025, at least 30 people died in ICE custody, the highest annual total since 2004.

In the first five months of 2026, 18 deaths have been reported, putting the year on track to surpass last year's figure.

Despite the drop in support, Trump and his allies have defended the crackdown as a necessary response to illegal immigration and border security concerns.

During his February 2026 State of the Union address, Trump said the administration was "deporting illegal alien criminals from our country at record numbers" and said the policy was making communities safer.

Beyond immigration policy, Trump’s overall approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his second term, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll.

33 percent of respondents in the four-day survey said they approved of Trump’s performance. 64 percent disapproved.

One key driver of discontent is the war in Iran. Nearly six months into the conflict and peace negotiations have continually stalled, prompting concerns about how long the conflict may go on.

The Reuters poll found that an overall 80 percent of Americans – 87 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans – think that the conflict will go on for an extended period.

Sixteen percent said they thought the conflict would end in a few weeks.

The war in Iran has also impacted the cost of living – already a key concern for U.S. residents.

The conflict has impacted a fifth of the global trade of oil and seen a surge in the price of gasoline that has weighed on U.S. residents.

Speaking on Friday about the war and how it has impacted oil prices, Trump said, “I’ll never apologize. I did the right thing.”

The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that voters leaned toward Democrats on the handling of the economy.

38 percent of voters thought that Democrats would handle the economy better, compared to 35 percent who would prefer the Republican approach.

With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, the narrowing partisan gap on immigration could be an early warning sign for Republicans, who have long held an advantage on the issue. Immigration remains one of Trump's strongest political areas, but if Democrats continue gaining ground, Republicans may no longer be able to rely on the issue as heavily to mobilize voters in key congressional races.

The coming months will test whether concerns about enforcement tactics and detention policies continue to shape public opinion, or whether the administration's border security record restores the wider lead Republicans enjoyed earlier in Trump's second term.