Nearly half of midterm voters said opposing President Donald Trump was one reason they cast ballots Tuesday, according to preliminary results from the NBC News Exit Poll.
In early results released by NBC News, 43% of voters said one reason for their vote was to express opposition to Trump, while 16% said they voted to show support for him.
About 6 in 10 voters said Trump was a factor in their congressional vote. That is slightly lower than in 2018 but well above 2022, when half said President Joe Biden’s performance factored in.
The numbers are preliminary. Exit poll results are updated and reweighted as more interviews arrive through the night, and they are not vote counts or projections of any race.
The survey, conducted by SSRS for a group of news organizations, combines interviews with voters leaving polling places and phone, mail and online interviews with people who voted early or by mail.
Trump’s approval among voters stood at 38%, with 62% disapproving. In his first midterm in 2018, 45% of voters approved of his performance, according to NBC.
NBC’s live coverage noted that 38% is the lowest Election Day approval for a sitting president since 2008, when George W. Bush’s approval among voters fell to 27%.
Majorities of Senate voters in Georgia, Ohio, Michigan and Texas said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of his job, the early results showed.
Neither party drew good marks. Fifty-nine percent of voters viewed the Republican Party unfavorably, up from 52% in 2022, while 54% viewed the Democratic Party unfavorably.
Voters were likelier to say Democrats could better handle the economy, foreign policy, health care and government corruption. Republicans held the advantage on immigration, and voters split on taxes and artificial intelligence.
Economy Tops the List
The economy ranked as the most important issue at 39%, followed by the state of democracy at 32%. Three-quarters of voters said the national economy is in rough shape.
Sixty-five percent said Trump’s policies have made the economy worse, and 62% said he is responsible for high prices. Forty-four percent said their finances are worse than two years ago; 18% said better.
The separate AP Voter Poll found a similar picture. About 4 in 10 voters named the economy as the top issue and about 3 in 10 named democracy, while about three-quarters said they were angry or dissatisfied.
On immigration, 57% of voters in the NBC poll said Trump’s enforcement actions have gone too far. Another 23% said they were about right and 21% said they have not gone far enough.
That means more than 4 in 10 voters still back the administration’s approach or want it tougher, even as 59% said they disapprove of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
There was some good news for free-market conservatives. Fifty-seven percent of voters viewed capitalism favorably, compared with 32% for socialism, though voters under 30 favored socialism 47% to 37%.
The share of Latino voters identifying as Democrats rose to 43% from 39% in 2024, while the Republican share slipped to 27% from 29%, according to the poll.
Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters told NBC News Now that Republicans are “well positioned to defy history,” adding that keeping the House “all comes down to turnout.”
Republicans entered Election Day with majorities in both chambers, and the Associated Press reported that the first polls closed at 6 p.m. Eastern in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. No House or Senate race had been called when the exit poll results were released.
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