Trump polls PLUMMET After ICE Disasters

What this episode is about

Trump's approval ratings have dropped significantly following recent incidents related to immigration and ICE, highlighting a fundamental shift in voter attitudes that could have long-term implications for the midterms and the Democratic Party's negotiating power in Congress. The fallout from the shootings in Minnesota has contributed to increased disapproval of ICE and a decline in sentiments towards Trump's immigration policies, indicating a troubling trend for his political future.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dan Feifer (Host) · 9 min speaking
• Caroline Russen (Guest) · 6 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Minnesota, Dan Feifer, Caroline Russen, Ice King
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Caroline Russen, Ice King, Minnesota, Department of Homeland Security
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Chrissy Gnome, Minnesota, Taylor Ramett, Texas
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Minnesota, Venezuela

Notable quotes from "Trump polls PLUMMET After ICE Disasters"

• Upset victory in Texas and what, if anything, Melania Trump's documentary tells us about the midterms. Then I'll wrap up with some Discord questions.

  about Dan Feifer · at 0:29

• Relatively standard for him. Where you're seeing the real difference is in approval ratings of ICE, where you now have large majorities who disapprove of ICE. There's over the…

  about Ice King · at 1:16

• That has bounced back. Now, according to Gallup, there is a record number of Americans think that immigration is a good thing. 79% say that. That's about a 10 to 15 point swing from 20 2024.

  about Gallup · at 2:38

• Earlier this week, nearly a quarter of them think quarter of Republicans believe that the Department of Homeland Security should not be funded absent additional guard rails on…

  about Department of Homeland Security · at 5:17

• Engage in the negotiations, was willing to urge Republicans to vote to keep the government open. the fact that Christy Gnome has volunteered that they're going to start putting body cams on ICE agents and CDP agents in Minnesota.

  about Minnesota · at 6:55

• Over the weekend, which is I feel like a sentence we don't say often. Democrat Taylor Ramett won his special election for a state senate seat in a district that Trump won by 17…

  about Texas · at 8:34

• Do you think Taylor Rette is Oh now I actually have to do this job. Like he's annoying.

  about Taylor Ramett · at 11:52

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Dan Feifer — Person · Host · 1 mention · first at 0:21
  Introduces the episode’s agenda and frames the discussion on polling, ICE, and midterm implications.
• Caroline Russen — Person · Co-host · 2 mentions · first at 0:36
  Co-leads the conversation, asks technical/polling questions, and transitions between topics (Minnesota/ICE, Texas special election).
  Joining me as always is Caroline Russen.
• Taylor Ramett — Person · Referenced political figure (election winner) · 1 mention · first at 8:38
  Cited as evidence of a major pro-Democratic swing in a Texas special election, used to discuss persuasion and midterm environment.
• Chrissy Gnome — Person · Referenced government official (Trump administration) · 3 mentions · first at 7:02
  Discussed in context of DHS/ICE negotiations and political pressure; mentioned re: body cams and calls to impeach her.
  Engage in the negotiations, was willing to urge Republicans to vote to keep the government open. the fact that Christy Gnome has volunteered that they're going to start putting body cams on ICE agents and CDP agents in Minnesota.
• Nate Silver — Person · Referenced expert (polling aggregator) · 1 mention · first at 1:05
  Cited as the source of an approval-rating average used to contextualize Trump’s standing.
  Trump. Trump's approval rating is down a little bit. It's sort of in the around 41% in Nate Silver's average, which is kind of within a point of where he was at the end of last…

Companies & orgs

• Gallup — Company · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 2:38
  Gallup polling data is cited to show shifts in public opinion on immigration.
• Department of Homeland Security — Company · Referenced entity · 2 mentions · first at 5:21
  Mentioned in the context of funding negotiations and ICE operations.

Concepts & topics

• Ice King — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 1:23
  Central to the discussion about immigration policies and public opinion shifts.

Places & events

• Minnesota — Place · Setting · 7 mentions · first at 0:23
  The recent shootings in Minnesota have significantly impacted public opinion on immigration and ICE.
• Texas — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 8:31
  The Democratic upset victory in Texas is discussed as a significant political event.
• Venezuela — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 11:43
  Mentioned as part of the broader context of immigration and political chaos.
  Seeing on their TVs in Minnesota and like just Minnesota than probably Venezuela and all the other chaos that's been happening in this country in 2026.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 You know, I think there's a fundamental shift here that Trump's strongest issue is now a real problem for him. And that has like long-term consequences for the midterms, for his ability to get out of the political mess that he's found himself in, and for how Democrats can negotiate in Congress going forward. Welcome to Polar Coaster. I'm Dan Feifer. Today, I'll be digging into how the recent shootings in Minnesota have impacted voters attitudes towards Trump, immigration, and ICE. the Democratic upset victory in Texas and what, if anything, Melania Trump's documentary tells us about the midterms. Then I'll wrap up with some Discord questions.

0:36 Joining me as always is Caroline Russen. Caroline, how are you? I'm great. I'm really excited to get to this Melania Trump documentary. Okay, so let's get into it because there is a lot. Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota and the killing of two American citizens has really broken through the news cycle, which has been potentially signaling a shift in the public's view of Trump, immigration, ICE. What are we seeing in the polls? There have been a lot.

1:00 The polls are all telling a consistent story, which is not a good one for Trump. Trump's approval rating is down a little bit. It's sort of in the around 41% in Nate Silver's average, which is kind of within a point of where he was at the end of last year. Uh, historically quite bad, but it's kind of relatively standard for him. Where you're seeing the real difference is in approval ratings of ICE, where you now have large majorities who disapprove of ICE. There's over the course of the last year, there's been about a net 30% swing in approval on ICE. It was 10 points above water uh at the beginning of Trump's term and now it's about 20 points underwater. You are seeing Trump is about 12 points underwater on immigration. Uh that number has ticked up since with the attention is focused on what's happening in Minneapolis. And you really are just seeing a, you know, I think there's a fundamental shift here

1:50 that Trump's strongest issue is now a real problem for him. And that has like long-term consequences for the midterms, for his ability to get out of the political mess that he's found himself in, and for how Democrats can negotiate in Congress going forward. Um, we had a Discord question from GDJ that asks, "There's been a lot of polling data about about the tactics of ICE and deportations, but what recent data do we have concerning immigration policies in general? Could the Democrats win on a platform based on immigration reform and providing a path for legal for legalizing all undocumented immigrants?

2:24 Has the great American melting pot been frozen over forever? It has not. Actually, there there was a real shift in immigration sentiment in the first few years of the Biden administration running through 2024. That has bounced back. Now, according to Gallup, there is a record number of Americans think that immigration is a good thing. 79% say that. That's about a 10 to 15 point swing from 20 2024. Similarly, in Gallup polling, about 9 and 10 voters believe that the dreamers, the pe the kids who were brought here by their parents at a young age should have a path to legal status. And about the same number actually think that people who've been here a long time who meet a certain set of conditions should also have a path to legal status. Now that doesn't mean every single person like and a lot of the polling I've seen on this over over many many years is are you you know you have to pay back taxes,

3:13 are you here working uh are you working? How long have you been in the country? You have to go to the back of the line to get status. The core pos Democratic position on immigration reform that was dominated through the Obama years is still quite popular now. And the reason why you don't hear about it is because Democrats stopped talking about it. They got so scared of their own shadow about the border that they essentially seated the entire issue to Republicans and allowed Trump to talk about the border and then implement mass deportation while we never talked about mass deportation and never talked about an alternative to actually reform the system. So there like it seems really really bad, but it's because the bad people are in power, not because the American people have suddenly turned on immigrants and become more insular, more nationalist, or more um anti-immigrant.

4:00 That's not what it is. It's that the people in power are those things. Is there any Democrat right now who's kind of like a leader of this conversation right now who thinks doing a good job?

4:09 GGO probably. I mean, there are a bunch. You know, GGO understands that really immigration reform in the minds of voters is a bargain, which is you're going to secure the border, but then you're also going to reform the system. And that reform includes a path to citizenship for large numbers of people who've been here a long time, who are living in communities, who are working hard, who are married to American citizens, have American citizen children, things like that. So, is this shift that you're seeing, is this happening mostly among Democrats and independents, or is there any evidence that Trump voters don't like what's going on either?

4:43 Democrats have been so anti- Trump immigration policies for so many months now that the numbers really haven't moved. They couldn't get any lower. It's like 3% of Democrats approve of what he's doing.

4:55 Independents, there's been some movement among independents. That's really happened over the course of the year. It's gone. There's been some more movement among independents since the focus on Minnesota. But the real shift is Republicans and there is about depending on the poll about a fifth of Republicans are unhappy with what ICE is doing. They disapprove of ICE. They think Trump is going too far. They um in the data for progress poll that came out earlier this week, nearly a quarter of them think quarter of Republicans believe that the Department of Homeland Security should not be funded absent additional guard rails on ice. So there is a swath of Republicans, it's a pretty significant one. It's about 20% who are very unhappy with what Trump is doing, what ICE is doing, and and his immigration policies at large.

5:38 I have a technical question that I had while I was doing the research was that there was this Fox News poll that said nearly half of Republicans who describe themselves as non-MAGA Republicans say they think ICE has been too aggressive. Um, how are they g how are people identifying themselves as non-maga Republicans? Is there a specific question? Because I did not see that in the cross tabs.

6:03 There is a question. You see this CBS puts this in their poll a lot. Do you consider yourself a MAGA Republican or just a Republican? And that's one way to sort of divide between people who are sort of pro who are Republicans who happen to be okay with Trump and people who are pro Trump who happen to be okay with be okay with the Republican party. Um, and so yeah, that's it's an interesting dividing line. You you see that a fair amount. It's usually, you know, I guess you'd ask it simply. Do you consider yourself a mega Republican or a traditional Republican is one way I've seen that question asked.

6:34 Yeah. Okay. Interesting. I was like going crazy trying to figure that out. Um, with the ongoing negotiations in Congress over DHS funding, do you see, you know, large amount of polls like this having any effect on those conversations?

6:50 I think they already have, right? the fact that we're even having these negotiations, that Trump was willing to engage in the negotiations, was willing to urge Republicans to vote to keep the government open. Um, the fact that Christy Gnome has volunteered that they're going to start putting body cams on ICE agents and CDP agents in Minnesota and then eventually elsewhere is a sign that they are feeling very real political pressure here. Cuz you would just think think of a different scenario. The Republicans would lick their chops at the idea that Democrats would shut down ICE.

7:22 Yeah. Right. And the fact that they do not want that to happen, they do. They're willing. They're looking they're willing to make some concessions. We'll see what those concessions actually are. But it does show that the Trump administration and Republicans on the ballot in November are feeling real pressure here. When I hear there have been people saying um I'm talking about on TikTok I see a lot of people talking about wanting to impeach Christine Gnome. Is that just a distraction or is that a real possibility?

7:49 I mean you could uh you theoretically could do it. You need a majority of the House. We don't have the ability to start the process ourselves because we're not in the majority. Um but then she would have to be removed by twothirds of the Senate and that is just a mathematical impossibility. So, you know, I think if you could I don't I just can't imagine you could get Republicans would actually impeach her. Uh but there is support for it. Like there is public support. People do not like her approval ratings in the toilet.

8:16 There is support in the majority support for it in the data for progress poll I mentioned. But you would require a it would require the leadership of the Republican party to allow that process to take place.

8:26 Um okay, let's uh move to a topic that's a little less soul sucking. Um, so Democrats had a huge victory in Texas over the weekend, which is I feel like a sentence we don't say often. Um, Democrat Taylor Ramett won his special election for a state senate seat in a district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024. And this is roughly a 30point swing in the district. So, as a group of people who are famously fearful of hope, how should Polar Coaster listeners take in this victory?

8:57 I think there's reason to be hopeful here. like with the obvious caveat that this is a low turnout special election and special elections are not particularly predictive of midterm and presidential election results. But there was this election is a very very very positive data point. Let me give you a couple reasons why. So this is a district that uh Trump won by 17 points last year. The Democrat wins by 14 points. That's a 31 point swing. And you may in your head think typically, well, that probably means that the Republicans were caught napping. You know, this is such a Republican district. They didn't invest any money or time. That's not true. They outspent the Democrats. Trump endorsed the Republican. Trump urged his supporters to vote for the Republican.

9:41 They this was they lost this fair and square. Next, there is when you look at the numbers, you would also think, oh, well, Democrats must have turned out at a gigantic rate. Republicans stayed home. That's not actually what happened. The electorate was a plurality Republican, which makes sense. It's a very Republican district, and the Democrats still won by 14 points, which means they got basically every single independent or nonpartisan voter who voted and some number of Republicans. So, this is not just a qu question of Democratic turnout in a low turnout special election. It is persuasion. like we saw Virginia, like we saw in New Jersey, you're seeing a swath of Republicans who were voting for a Democrat and are unhappy with what's happening in this country. And then when you look at the uh the when you look at the Hispanic precincts in this district, and this is not a tiny district. This is this

10:31 district is 1 million people big. It is bigger than most congressional districts. If you look at the Hispanic precincts in this district, they moved in some cases 50 points in Democrat's direction. A huge swing from 2024. And that has all kinds of con consequences for Republicans particularly in Texas where they drew their jury mandered maps to based on the idea that the Trump's gains with Latinos in 2024 would be enduring. This election is evidence that they very much are not. And so I think like this is very very positive. It doesn't mean we're going to have a plus 31 Democratic environment in 2020 in 2026. No. But it means that oh and one other point this is really important which actually I think ties to the earlier questions about you know people's reaction and what's happening in Minnesota. So this was a runoff election. The original election was in November and where you had a bunch of

11:19 Republicans especially Democrats running to see if anyone could get over 50%. Thus five republic the Republicans got five points more than the total Democrats. So that this then shifted 19 points from then. So, something has happened between November and now that has made the political environment much worse for Republicans and much more favorable for Democrats. And I think it's kind of hard to imagine that's anything other than what people are seeing on their TVs in Minnesota and like just Minnesota than probably Venezuela and all the other chaos that's been happening in this country in 2026.

11:50 So, take it's hope. I take hope. Do you think Taylor Rette is like, "Oh now I actually have to do this job." Like he's annoying. Well, he's going to fill in this for 11 months and then have to run again to be reelected because this is to fill the term of someone who left.

12:09 For some reason, when he won, I just immediately thought of that meme where it's like, oh no, when you realize you're actually important at work and you have to do job now like

12:19 Um Elijah had a question here. He asked, "If the Texas results were extrapolated nationwide, the Democrats would only have 59 seats, 60 if Osborne wins in Nebraska. Is that a compelling argument of getting rid of the filibuster?"

12:33 Yes, it is. So, it's it's an argument for a couple things. one, it's first it's evidence of the tremendous bias in the Senate map versus Republicans because the Republicans dominate the smaller rural plain states in particular who have uh two senators and one or two members of Congress. uh and we dominate we dominate places like New York and California have huge populations but also the same two senators is if you want the argument for getting the filibuster is it's almost impossible for Democrats to ever get to 60 Senate seats and so if you want to get anything done it's you're not doing it through reconciliation it's going to have to be done by getting rid of the filibuster like that's just it's the I I believe our country is largely ungovernable with the filibuster and that's going to re down to our benefit when we're in charge It's going to be a gigantic it's going to suck when we're not in charge. But if

13:26 you want to get things done, you can't have a 60 vote threshold in a highly polarized times when uh it's almost impossible for at least for one party to get to 60. Democ Republicans could get to 60. Um and there's also an argument for making DC a state. It's also an argument for uh if the people of Puerto Rico were to choose to become a state, let them become a state. Um you know, just the map the map is never going to be good for Democrats. Is it also an argument for Democrats figuring out how to win more in red states? That's the other thing. Like, if we really want to build a sustainable majority that can defeat MAGA over the long term, we have to be able to win in states that uh we currently are not competitive in. That's it for this week's preview of Polar Coaster. If you want to watch the rest of this episode, become a paid member of this channel by clicking the join button below. When you subscribe, you also get

14:12 more exclusive content and ad for episodes of Potsafe America and more Qriket shows. Plus, joining is the best way to directly support us as we build a counterweight to the right-wing media machine. You can learn more at cricut.com/friend. Thanks and see you next time.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump polls PLUMMET After ICE Disasters"?

Dan Feifer (Host), Caroline Russen (Guest).

What is "Trump polls PLUMMET After ICE Disasters" about?

Trump's approval ratings have dropped significantly following recent incidents related to immigration and ICE, highlighting a fundamental shift in voter attitudes that could have long-term implications for the midterms and the Democratic Party's negotiating power in Congress. The fallout from the shootings in Minnesota has contributed to increased disapproval of ICE and a decline in sentiments…

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Dan Feifer, Caroline Russen, Ice King, Minnesota, Texas, Taylor Ramett. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump polls PLUMMET After ICE Disasters"?

The episode runs 15 min; the transcript is about 2,853 words in 28 timestamped sections.

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