CBS News poll analysis on cost of living and whether Americans see answers from political parties

For a long time, big majorities of Americans have said their incomes are not keeping up with inflation, and they’ve continued to feel President Trump isn’t focused enough on it. Yet many aren’t seeing relief coming from either side of the aisle. 

Both parties are underwater on whether their policies are perceived as helping with the cost of living.

Americans are comparatively more critical of Republicans: A majority say GOP policies hurt, rather than help. 

This may be partly related to the president’s low ratings on inflation, since there is a lot of overlap between people who say this and who also think the president’s policies make them financially worse off.

While the Democrats do relatively better than Republicans, the Democrats’ “help” number is still only one-third and on balance, slightly net-negative compared to their “hurt” number.

 On economic policy more generally, things are even.

Trump and Republicans, considered together, have the slightest of edges on immigration policy over the Democrats among Americans. 

Both face some difficulties on this. The administration’s deportation program has slipped somewhat in approval during the course of the term, and that is strongly connected to these views. Favorable impressions are very much concentrated among the GOP base, and Republicans also give President Trump much higher ratings for his handling of immigration than for inflation.

Democrats face difficulties here in terms of perceived priorities, since they’re seen by many as not prioritizing the interests of longer-term citizens over more recent immigrants. 

Voting and election procedures

Americans’ views about U.S. election and voting procedures have changed little since Mr. Trump delivered his primetime address on elections earlier this month.

Confidence remains at the level it was — not any lower, not any higher.

There continues to be wide bipartisan support for requiring a photo ID to cast a ballot. 

But most see elections and voting as a local matter: A large majority of Americans want their own states, rather than the Trump administration, to have the final say in how elections are run. 

Overall, more voters would prefer the Democrats control Congress next year than the Republicans. This is fairly typical for the party out of the White House in a midterm, but once we get into the fall, we’ll start to get a clearer picture of how that generalized preference will translate into specific votes and play out against a narrow field of competitive contests.

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,193 U.S. adults interviewed between July 22-24, 2026. The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as 2024 presidential vote. The margin of error is ±2.7 points. 

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