President Trump Receives High Marks on The Border and Middle East Peace Effort

By Manzanita Miller

While President Donald Trump’s approval rating is under scrutiny after dipping into the low 40’s, polling shows Americans are slowly beginning to say the United States is getting back on the right track. Voters also back President Trump on his commitment to border security and his effort to broker peace between Israel and Hamas.    

A new Marquette University poll released Nov. 19 finds that while a wide majority of Americans — 66 percent — say the country is off on the wrong track, that number has dropped nine percentage points since November 2024, during the final weeks of the Biden Administration. Currently, 34 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, up from just 25 percent in November 2024, and 66 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, down from 75 percent.  

A large reason for the perception that the country is on the wrong track — although that perception is slowly improving — is the cost-of-living crisis. While inflation is down from it’s peak in 2022 under the Biden Administration, wages have not increased enough to match the elevated costs of everyday goods like groceries and rent, and Americans are feeling that discrepancy heavily.   

President Trump’s approval rating is lowest on economic issues, with 28 percent approving of his handling of inflation and the cost of living, 36 percent approving of his handling of the economy, and 37 percent approving of his handling of tariffs.   

These issues are also front and center for voters, with inflation/cost of living ranked the number one priority for Americans, followed by the economy and then border security. According to the survey, 36 percent of Americans cite inflation/cost of living as the most important issue to them, followed by 20 percent who cite the economy, and ten percent who cite immigration. Healthcare comes in fourth, with nine percent of Americans citing healthcare as their number one priority.

That said, the American people, including a broad coalition of independents and a sizeable share of Democrats, give President Donald Trump credit on his efforts to broker peace between Israel and Hamas, his commitment to securing the Southern border, and his immigration reform efforts that have resulted in the lowest number of illegal border encounters since the 1970s.   

President Trump’s highest approval rating is on his impact on the Israel-Hamas conflict, with 67 percent of adults approving of Trump’s role in brokering peace between the two governments. This includes 59 percent of independents who support Trump’s role in the peace deal, and nearly half (49 percent) of Democrats.   

Border security — President Trump’s greatest promise to the American people during his campaign — is also receiving high marks from Americans, with 54 percent saying they approve of Trump’s handling of the border. This includes 40 percent of independents and 24 percent of Democrats. 45 percent of Americans also support President Trump’s larger immigration reform, including deporting illegal aliens, with 77 percent of Republicans, 39 percent of independents and 14 percent of Democrats supporting the president’s immigration reform policies that have led to a record-breaking decline in illegal aliens entering the country.  

While economic issues have been slower to resolve, the share of Americans to say saying the country is off on the wrong track has declined substantially in the past year and voters are giving President Donald Trump credit for his peace efforts in the Middle East and commitment to securing the southern U.S. border. The border in particular is a victory that conservatives should be celebrating, considering President Trump and Republicans were able to drive illegal border encounters to their lowest rate in 50 years in 2025.   

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.