What Do Americans Know About Trump 2.0? A Lot.
President Donald Trump is a deeply divisive political figure in the United States — loved by some, loathed by others — but American Communities Project’s 2025 survey made one point clear: He has the nation’s attention.
The ACP/Ipsos survey of more than 5,000 people asked five factual true/false questions mostly around the Trump administration’s policies and impacts, on everything from tariffs to immigration to the president’s “big beautiful bill.” And large numbers of people got the answers correct in all 15 community types we examine.
Reporting that Americans are aware of the president’s actions may sound obvious. He is the president, after all. But the 2025 results stand apart from those around a similar set of questions last year — the majority of which respondents answered incorrectly.
There were still notable differences between the communities on some questions in the 2025 survey, and people’s political leanings appear to play a role in some of the answers. Yet it’s hard to ignore how much people got right about many of the proposals and actions coming from the White House.
In a world where news and information tend to fly by, a lot of Americans seem to be well tuned into Trump’s second term.
Tariffs
It may not be a surprise that respondents were very aware that Trump imposed a lot of tariffs in the first year of his second term. Nationally, two-thirds of respondents correctly answered “true” to this statement, “The U.S. has implemented tariffs on nearly all countries.”
In addition, a clear majority in every one of the ACP’s community types gave the correct “true” response. (Note: All the charts in this post are shown on a scale of 0-100%, and the empty parts of the bars reflect those who did not answer the question or who skipped it.)
Such a consistent response is rare in the ACP typology. Many of these communities turn to different sources for their news, which often leads to different understandings of the actions of Washington and of reality itself.
That said, there are still some differences here. Nearly three-quarters of respondents in the Big Cities correctly said the statement on tariffs was true, while only 56% in the Military Posts did. But most communities were clumped together, with 60%-70% of people giving the correct response.
One note, the Aging Farmlands were on the high end of people giving the correct response (71%). That may be because they are feeling more pain than other places in the tariff fight. China’s cuts in purchases of American farm products have taken a toll on many in the Aging Farmlands.
Immigration
The survey also found that respondents largely knew that “U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE officials.” Nationally, 52% correctly said that statement was true, while only 21% said it was false. Across all 15 community types, at least a plurality gave the correct response.
Again, there were some notable differences across the types. In the Big Cities, 69% said the statement was true, while only 38% did in the Evangelical Hubs.
That’s a 31-point gap, and there many potential reasons for it. Of course, the Big Cities lean heavily Democratic, and Evangelical Hubs went big for Trump in 2024. But beyond that may be firsthand experience and knowledge. The Big Cities tend to have far more immigrant residents and witnessed a lot of ICE raids this year. The more rural Evangelical Hubs have far fewer foreign-born residents.
Regardless, the data here show there is a reasonable understanding of some of the undesired impacts of the nation’s immigration policies across all 15 community types.
The Big Beautiful Bill
The president’s big legislative accomplishment of 2025 was a complicated amalgam of ideas, programs, and dollars — everything from tax cuts to boosts in defense and border patrol spending to changes on student loans. One would be hard pressed to find a voter who could identify even a third of the provisions in the legislation.
But some aspects of the bill did get through to the public. For instance, the survey showed that most Americans knew that the legislation “requires states to implement work requirements for both Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).” Nationally, 56% said that statement was true, as did at least a plurality in every community type.
Only in the Hispanic Centers did less than half of the respondents correctly respond to the prompt — and just barely at 48%.
That’s an impressive showing of knowledge among Americans. And in this case, it may be aided by Democratic and Republican beliefs about such proposals and the president.
Left-leaning communities, such as the Big Cities and College Towns, tend to not like those work requirements, but also don’t like Trump and presumably believe that he does like the requirements. Right-leaning communities, such as the Evangelical Hubs and Exurbs, tend to favor such requirements and believe Trump does as well.
But when it came to the Big Beautiful Bill’s impact on the federal deficit, the picture got more complicated.
The survey stated, “The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (aka the big, beautiful bill), is projected to decrease the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years.” That statement was false. The Congressional Budget Office projects the legislation will increase the deficit by $4 trillion in that time.
Nationally, more people knew the statement was false (32%) than believed it was true (23%). But at the community level that wasn’t the case.
In three communities (the Aging Farmlands, Native American Lands, and Working Class Country), more people said the statement was true than knew it was false. And in a fourth community (the Evangelical Hubs), equal numbers said both. Each of those four community types voted for Trump by large margins in 2024 — 15 percentage points or more.
That may be a sign of news consumption habits in those places. Some outlets that tend to be supportive of the president did not focus on the bill’s forecasted costs. Those communities may also be showing their partisan lean, wanting to believe the best about the president more broadly.
To be fair, however, many respondents did not answer this question. In many communities, 40% or more left the response blank or said they did not know.
Unemployment Rate
The responses on this statement, “The unemployment rate in the U.S. is at or near historic lows,” were perhaps the most complicated and interesting of all the true/false measures. The statement was true. In September, the national unemployment rate was 4.4%, which is near historic lows. But the question was complicated. Even though it was low, the number was higher than it was a few months earlier, which meant the rate might not have felt as low. And, of course, the unemployment rates across the different community types in the ACP can vary considerably. The ACP has noted some increases in unexpected places this year.
But the differences in what people believed about the unemployment rate were revealing.
Overall, there were large numbers of people who did not answer the question or who said they did not know. But among those that did answer, partisanship seemed to play a big role in the responses.
The communities where more people knew the statement about low unemployment was true, all voted for Trump in 2024: Evangelical Hubs, Graying America, LDS Enclaves, Middle Suburbs, and Working Class Country. But the responses weren’t just about partisanship. The communities where more people believed the statement was false were a mix of Trump and non-Trump voting communities.
Perhaps more telling, the communities with higher incomes and more college degrees tended to believe the statement was false: Big Cities, College Towns, Exurbs, and Urban Suburbs. It may be that those places, which tend to be on firmer economic ground, feel nervous the state of the economy. Economic attitudes in those communities, which are home to much of the nation’s population, could dictate a lot of economic sentiment in months ahead.
Takeaways
For the White House, there are some positive ways to read these numbers. In all 15 community types, the American people seem to be paying a lot of attention to the Trump presidency. He is driving the narrative.
The negative, however, is the flipside of that same point. The person in charge not only gets the credit when things go right but also takes the blame when things go wrong.
One year into his second term in office, President Trump is the main character in the American drama in the eyes of the nation. That’s the setting on the stage as 2025 winds down and the nation prepares for a year full of decisions, some big potential economic challenges, and the 2026 midterm elections.