A majority of American voters are generally disappointed with the people President Donald Trump has appointed to posts in his administration, according to an NBC News poll earlier this month — a record share in a question NBC News has measured at the start of four previous administrations.
The survey was conducted March 7-11, before The Atlantic published a story Monday revealing that a number of senior Trump administration officials — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz and others — participated in a Signal chat thread about plans to launch airstrikes against Houthi militants, in which Hegseth shared plans including the timing and types of aircraft used. The Signal thread included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, as well as Hegseth, Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and others.
But before the issue of Trump officials’ handling of sensitive information became public, voters already had concerns about the people Trump was putting into his second administration.
Earlier this month, 52% of those polled said they were generally disappointed with the people Trump had appointed to lead federal agencies and departments, while 45% said they were generally pleased with his selections. The numbers are fairly close to Trump’s overall approval rating, with 47% of registered voters approving of his job performance so far and 51% disapproving.
That’s a higher share of voters who are disappointed with Trump’s picks to lead federal agencies and departments than those who said the same in December 2016, shortly after Trump was elected to his first term. And it’s significantly higher than the share who were disappointed near the beginning of the presidencies of Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. (The NBC News poll did not test this question at the start of former President Joe Biden’s administration, instead asking a more general question about how people were judging Biden’s presidential transition efforts.)
In 2016, shortly before the first Trump administration began, 44% of poll respondents said they were generally disappointed with Trump’s intended nominees, while 43% said they were generally pleased.
Before Obama’s first term in December 2008, about two-thirds of Americans — 67% — said they were generally pleased with the incoming president’s Cabinet picks, while just 16% said they were generally disappointed.
The Obama numbers track fairly closely with the Bush and Clinton numbers. In January 2001, 54% of Americans were generally pleased with Bush’s Cabinet picks and only 17% of those polled said they were generally disappointed. Another 54% said they were generally pleased with Clinton’s picks eight years earlier, while 14% said they were disappointed.
Though “no” votes on Cabinet nominees are on the rise generally, several of Trump’s picks squeaked through Senate confirmation on notably close votes. Hegseth was confirmed as defense secretary only after Vance broke a tie, with three GOP senators voting against him. It was just the second time in history, after another nomination in the first Trump administration, that a tie-breaking vice presidential vote was necessary for a Cabinet pick.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., FBI Director Kash Patel and Gabbard all faced close Senate votes with at least one Republican voting against them, as well.
Familiar partisan splits drive the numbers
The split of those voters who are pleased and disappointed in Trump’s picks generally falls along party lines, with 88% of Republican voters saying they’re pleased with Trump’s nominees in his second administration and 95% of Democrats saying they’re disappointed in his picks. (The number of independents included in this survey question was too small to split out, due to the smaller sample size on this question.)
Just 10% of Republican voters said they were disappointed in Trump’s personnel, while 4% of Democratic voters said they were pleased with his picks.
In earlier times, voters supporting the party that had lost to the incoming president had been more evenly split between being pleased and disappointed, with a large share also saying they were unsure or volunteering that they had mixed opinions. But now, the party-line split is driving the topline numbers on this question, which lean against Trump.
In 2008, 46% of Republicans described themselves as pleased with Obama’s intended nominees, a slightly higher share than the 36% in the GOP who said they were disappointed.
In 2001, 28% of Democrats said they were pleased with Bush’s picks, a slightly lower share than the 32% who said they were disappointed.
The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from March 7-11 via a mix of telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. This question on Trump administration personnel was asked to a half-sample of respondents, meaning the margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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