Americans are divided on how President Donald Trump is handling gun policy thus far in his second term, according to a new poll.
YouGov became the latest major pollster to ask about guns late last week. It found 41 percent disapproved of Trump’s handling of firearms, while 39 percent felt the opposite. However, another 20 percent hadn’t yet made up their minds.
Though he was just two points underwater on guns, Trump fared worse with those who had strong opinions on the matter. 32 percent strongly disapproved of Trump’s handling of the issue, while 26 percent strongly approved.
The YouGov poll comes a few weeks after a Fox News poll produced similar results. Americans are divided on, and slightly dissatisfied overall with, how President Trump has approached guns to this point. That could limit his political capital to pursue significant gun reforms.
However, the polling may also suggest his slower and more limited approach to gun issues is keeping his approval on the issue above what he’s seeing on the vast majority of other issues. Though Trump is two points underwater on guns, he only performs better on five of the 52 issues YouGov polled–a similar outcome to the Fox poll.
That guns are a relative bright spot says a lot about how poorly Trump performed overall in the survey. Outside of crime, where rates continue to fall off a cliff and Trump is plus nine in approval, Americans are not very happy with the first few months of his second outing in the Oval Office. More Americans are upset with his handling of 47 of the 52 issues YouGov asked about than happy with it. Additionally, a plurality of respondents–37 percent–said their opinion of Trump had “worsened a lot,” with just 15 percent claiming the opposite.
His average approval on the issues is minus nine, with the approval rating for his general performance a point worse than that. Like the Fox poll, though, more Americans approved of his overall performance–at 42 percent–than his handling of guns–at 39 percent. His predecessor, Joe Biden, dealt with a similar dynamic. Americans consistently gave him worse ratings on guns than on his overall performance. That trend held true even as Biden’s popularity tanked in the latter stretch of his tenure.
Americans appear to be more satisfied or less sure about Trump’s handling of guns to this point, though. A March 2024 poll from YouGov and The Economist put Biden’s gun approval at 29 percent. Trump himself has also experienced lower approval ratings on guns during his first term, with Fox finding just 35 percent approved of Trump’s handling of firearms and 56 percent disapproved in September 2019.
The poll found a majority of Americans said guns are a “very important” issue. Although, that puts the issue in the middle of the pack of all the topics surveyed. YouGov also found that Democrats and Republicans had Trump’s performance on guns in about the middle of the pack of issues as well.
Gun policy was one of the few issues on which both parties had a similar view of its importance. There was just a six-point gap between the two sides on guns, unlike the 57-point gap on the importance of climate change.
YouGov surveyed 2,220 American adults for the poll, which it conducted online between April 25th and May 2nd. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent.
