Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture.
President Donald Trump is obsessed with his own name, but Trump voters? Not so much.
Since retaking the White House in January 2025, Trump has slapped his name onto the outside of the Kennedy Center and the Institute of Peace. He wants it on Dulles Airport too, so much so that he will reportedly withhold infrastructure funding until it happens. And yet Americans who voted for him in the 2024 presidential election oppose all of those rebrands on net. Yes, all of them.
The front of the U.S. Institute of Peace building, now with 100% more Donald Trump.
A paltry 34% of Trump voters support renaming the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” while 42% oppose doing so, according to a YouGov survey conducted late last month. That puts their net support for the rebrand at -9 percentage points (after rounding).
Similarly, among Trump voters, rebranding the U.S. Institute of Peace as the “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace” is 8 points underwater and turning Washington’s Dulles International Airport into “Donald J. Trump International Airport” is 5 points underwater.
That’s just Trump voters, though. Among the broader electorate, those renamings are overwhelmingly unpopular. All three are more than 50 points underwater. Not a single one is supported by more than 15% of the country.
As if he would stop there, Trump also wants his name on New York City’s famed Pennsylvania Station. While no polling for this could be sourced as of Friday afternoon, it’s safe to say the public would be equally opposed to this.
Apparently, there is a level of vulgarity that turns off Trump voters. But did they really expect better from the man behind Trump University, Trump Winery, Trump Steaks, various Trump Towers, 16 Trump golf courses, and Trump-branded “cheese paddles”?
But Trump isn’t stopping at slapping his name onto existing structures. Ever the real estate developer—if a somewhat failed one—he wants to build monuments to himself that the next president can’t knock down quite so easily, like a 250-foot triumphal arch near the National Mall. After all, what says “tackling the cost-of-living crisis” better than building an ostentatious monument in your backyard?
President Donald Trump holds a model for the proposed arch to be built near the National Mall.
The project’s proposed name is Independence Arch, but given how it’s essentially Paris’ Arc de Triomphe but 90 feet taller, it bears the unfortunate informal name “Arc de Trump.” In fact, the arch would be so tall as to obstruct air travel around Reagan National Airport, according to a CNN analysis of building plans. Lest we forget, that’s the very same airspace that suffered a deadly air collision mere days into Trump’s new presidency.
And yet, as with Trump’s cheap rebrands, Americans are widely opposed to his expensive pet projects.
Only 21% of Americans tell YouGov/Economist that they support building his arch. It doesn’t even garner majority support among Trump voters, with just 43% endorsing the plan. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans (52%) oppose it, with the remainder unsure (27%).
Funny thing is, that project’s dismal support is higher than that for Trump demolishing the White House’s East Wing to build a ballroom (25% support, 58% oppose) and Trump closing the Kennedy Center to conduct a large-scale renovation (19% support, 53% oppose).
Notably, only the ballroom receives majority support among Trump voters (57%). The group is much more tepid about renovating the Kennedy Center (39% support) and building the arch (43% support).
Even Trump’s bootleg retitling of the Department of Defense as the Department of War is unpopular. A YouGov poll conducted this past September found that 60% of Americans opposed the name change, while just 25% supported it. And while 54% of Trump voters backed the rebrand, that’s hardly an overwhelming endorsement. Who could’ve guessed that people are wary of “war”?
All of these projects—renaming, rebuilding, or new construction—reek of desperation. Instead of tackling voters’ top concerns, like inflation or health care, Trump is slapping his name on some buildings and hoping that the next president will forget to pry the letters off. He is trying to steal a legacy rather than earn one.
Any updates?
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Will Democrats this year win the Texas governor’s mansion for the first time since 1990? Almost certainly not, but there’s a chance they’ll come closer than they have in decades, which speaks to the state’s—and the nation’s—broader electoral environment. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the front-runner in the Democratic primary, trails Gov. Greg Abbott by 7 points, according to a poll YouGov conducted for the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs. If the election results mirror that, it will be the closest a Democrat has come to winning the mansion since 1994, when Democratic incumbent Gov. Ann Richards lost to future President George W. Bush by 7.6 points. However, there’s a chance things this year will be even closer. Hinojosa’s campaign just released a poll showing her behind Abbott by only 3 points, though internal polls are generally less trustworthy.
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U.S. Olympians are rightly denouncing their nation’s deadly immigration enforcement operations, but unfortunately, the country is split on whether they should be speaking up. YouGov finds that 37% of Americans, including 60% of Democrats, say Olympians should be allowed to talk politics at the games, while 40%, including 68% of Republicans, think they shouldn’t be allowed to. The remaining 23% of Americans aren’t sure.
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RIP to arguably the best presidential-approval poll in the nation. Gallup announced on Wednesday that it would axe its approval poll after 88 years, bringing an end to possibly the longest consistently conducted poll on the topic. Gallup’s approval poll has made frequent appearances across Daily Kos, including in this column, and it’s hard to overstate the loss.
Vibe check
Scared of how the Republican Party will perform in this year’s midterm elections, Trump is floating the idea of the federal government taking over state elections, prompting many Democratic lawmakers to speculate that he may use federal immigration agents to deter voting.
Voters see that as a real possibility themselves. Nearly two-thirds of likely voters (64%) think Trump will deploy agents to prevent participation in the midterms, a new Data for Progress poll finds. Just 21% think he won’t try it.
A majority of voters (56%) support the government blocking such a deployment. That includes 77% of Democrats, 58% of independents, and even a third of Republicans (33%).
