With President Donald Trump in office for less than a week, voters appear inclined to support him in his initial moves, as polling data suggests his efforts to make good on his election promises are broadly popular.

Trump currently enjoys a 53.0% approval rating in the RealClearPolitics polling average, with just 40.0% disapproving of his performance. That figure marks a considerably higher level than he enjoyed at any point in his first term. The RCP is a poll of polls, aggregating the data in different ways.

Comprising the average are three polls from Rasmussen Reports, InsiderAdvantage, and Reuters/Ipsos. The Reuters poll appears to be an outlier among the three and shows Trump with 47% approval and 41% disapproval. The others both showed Trump with 56% approval.

By contrast, Biden left office with 39.0% approval rating and a 57.1% disapproval rating in the RCP average. On some of Trump’s key issues such as immigration and inflation, Biden polled noticeably lower. That exit appears to have left the public with an appetite for a reversal of Democratic policies and left Trump with some political cover to enact some of his signature campaign proposals.

A recent Napolitan News Survey, moreover, indicated that the public was broadly engaged during Trump’s first week, with 59% of registered voters either following the news about Trump “very” or “somewhat” closely.

A further 72% of registered voters watched at least parts of Trump’s inaugural address, with 27% calling it “excellent,” 19% deeming it “good,” and 12% calling it “fair.” Twenty-eight percent were not asked since they didn't watch it. 

Voters back his immigration moves so far

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order reinstating his “Remain in Mexico” policy which required asylum seekers to stay outside of the U.S. interior while awaiting their immigration court date. He further declared a national emergency at the border and set border czar Tom Homan with the task of implementing mass deportations.

The return of the Remain in Mexico policy met with 65% approval among registered voters in a recent Napolitan News Service Survey, with 23% favoring Biden’s catch and release approach and 12% unsure.

In the Reuters/Ipsos survey, 58% agreed that the U.S. should "dramatically reduce the number of migrants allowed to claim asylum at the border," but did not specifically address the "Remain in Mexico" policy. Forty-six percent approved of Trump's immigration approach overall.

Draining the Swamp

Some of Trump’s initial efforts involved the dismissal of an uncertain number of career federal employees and Biden-appointed officials. He further revoked the security clearances of a number of intelligence community veterans who signed on to a letter suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation campaign.

The security clearance move met with majority approval, as 35% strongly approved and 19% somewhat approved in the Napolitan News survey. Thirty percent disapproved to some degree while 17% were unsure.

Voters also broadly supported an incoming president’s ability to appoint agency leaders who share his views, with 56% saying a new commander-in-chief should be able to replace agency leaders, while 28% said a new president should have to keep the previous president’s appointees and 16% were unsure.

Some moves less popular

Among Trump’s most news-grabbing early moves were his pardons of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 participants that included high-profile participants such as Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, Jacob Chansley (the QAnon shaman), and Adam Johnson (Lectern Guy).

That decision was not popular with participants in the Reuters survey. Fifty-eight percent said that Trump should not pardon Jan. 6 participants. Twenty-nine percent indicated support for Trump’s handling of the politicization of the justice system.

His move to end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are not lawful permanent residents of the U.S. moreover, has a majority of U.S. adults in opposition. Fifty-one percent either somewhat or strongly opposed that executive order, while 28% supported it and 20% were neutral, in an Associated Press/NORC poll. That order, however, became subject to a judicial block on Thursday as left-leaning states challenged its constitutionality, which may take years of appellate litigation.

Territorial expansion also appears unpopular with the public. Trump has floated the purchase of Greenland, integration with Canada, and the recovery of the Panama Canal.

The Reuters survey showed limited interest in expanding American borders. Only 21% agreed that the United States had a right to take additional territory for itself. Sixteen percent supported pressuring Denmark to sell Greenland while 29% supported retaking the Panama Canal.

Those results align somewhat with an earlier Napolitan News survey that showed support for taking the Panama Canal significantly higher than for acquiring Greenland. In that poll, 40% supported taking the canal while 37% supported taking Greenland.

Conducted Jan. 20-21, the Reuters survey questioned 1,077 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of +/- 4%.

Conducted Jan. 21-22, the Napolitan News survey questioned 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of +/-  3.1%.