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About A Fourth Of Americans Think Trump Has Kept His Campaign Promises

President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks after touring a Whirlpool manufacturing plant in Clyde, Ohio, on Thursday. (Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks after touring a Whirlpool manufacturing plant in Clyde, Ohio, on Thursday. (Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

With months left until President Donald Trump faces reelection, only about one-quarter of Americans say he has lived up to most of his campaign promises, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds.

Just 26% of Americans say Trump has lived up to most of his campaign promises, with an additional 16% expecting him to do so in the future. The plurality, 42%, say he’s unlikely to do so.

More than three years ago, as Trump marked his 100th day in office, 9% believed he had already achieved his campaign promises, 31% that he would and 44% that he was unlikely to fulfill them. In polling since, the share expecting Trump to fail has remained relatively steady.

(Photo: Ariel Edwards-Levy/HuffPost)
(Photo: Ariel Edwards-Levy/HuffPost)

Results remain sharply divided along political lines, although the president’s opponents are more universal in their negativity than his backers are in their support. Sixty percent of voters who supported Trump in 2016 say he’s already lived up to most of his goals, 22% that he’s likely to and just 11% that he’s unlikely to do so. An 83% majority of voters who backed Hillary Clinton in the last election say Trump is unlikely to live up to his promises.

Americans say, 48% to 30%, that Trump’s policy positions as president are largely similar to the ones he espoused as a candidate. Most stand by their choices from 2016: Only 3% of Clinton voters and a slightly higher 7% of Trump voters say they regret their votes in that election. A more substantial minority of nonvoters, 22%, say they regret not having cast a ballot.

Just 6% of Americans say they believe Trump has succeeded in “draining the swamp,” with a quarter saying he’s likely to accomplish that in office and 49% that he’s unlikely to do so. Seventeen percent believe he’s succeeded in making America great again, with 24% expecting him to do this and 47% saying he’s unlikely to do so. By contrast, half or more say Trump has accomplished or will accomplish naming a new Supreme Court justice, temporarily banning refugees from some Muslim-majority counties and renegotiating trade deals with other countries.

Asked which three of the listed campaign promises they most want to see the president keep, 38% of Americans pick bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., with 26% naming “draining the swamp” and 20% choosing Trump’s vow to make America great again. Fewer than 1 in 5 selected any of the other options, including the president’s promise to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it, or to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Notably, the emphasis of Trump’s supporters has shifted. Most Trump voters now say their priorities from the president’s list of campaign promises include “draining the swamp” (53%) and restoring manufacturing jobs (51%). Only 27% now list building a wall on the Mexican border as among the three promises of the highest importance to them, down from 39% in 2018, when it was one of the promises his voters most wanted to see kept. Similarly, just 22% now cite repealing the Affordable Care Act as among Trump’s most important campaign promises, down from 44% in a 2017 poll taken before the Republican Party largely abandoned the idea.

Use the widget below to further explore the results of the HuffPost/YouGov survey, using the menu at the top to select survey questions and the buttons at the bottom to filter the data by subgroups.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted July 29-31 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.

HuffPost has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.

Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some but not all potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.