It may be what marginal voters should have expected, but it’s not what they wanted
By 
As I’ve said before, strategic ambiguity and media whitewashing are a great strategy for campaigning, but when you actually take office and do the unpopular things people convinced themselves you wouldn’t do the jig is up:
Support for President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is in free fall in early 2026 after federal immigration agents shot and killed two Americans last month, according to the new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.
The administration’s aggressive tactics and deportation goals have dragged down Americans’ views of Trump on the very issue that helped sweep him into office, the survey shows.
Immigration and border security had long stood out as a strength for Trump in polls, both as he ran for a second term in 2024 and in the first year of his new administration. Now, Trump’s ratings on the issue have sunk to the same level as his overall job approval rating.
n a double-digit shift, 49% of adults strongly disapprove of how Trump has handled border security and immigration, up from 38% strong disapproval last summer and 34% in April. Self-identified independents drove the erosion, with the share of strong disapprovers in that group having risen 11 points since August.
Fully 60% of those surveyed in the week after the death of Alex Pretti in Minnesota somewhat or strongly disapproved of Trump’s actions on border security and immigration. Another 40% approved of Trump on the issue, including 27% who strongly approved and 13% who somewhat approved.
Meanwhile, his overall approval rating declined slightly to 39%, about even with his rating on immigration and border security.
“In these elections that are won on the margins, particularly in the swing states, independents are a really critical group,” said Marc Trussler, a senior elections analyst for NBC News’ Decision Desk and part of the team that conducted the poll. “To see them shift so heavily on one of the president’s key priorities is really telling.”
The findings expose the limitations of the Trump messaging machine in the wake of the fatal shootings of Pretti and Renee Good by immigration agents in Minnesota. The administration has tried to turn the conversation away from acts of aggression against immigrants, protesters and residents, instead focusing on the dangers of “sanctuary” policies and asserting that a silent majority of Americans welcome immigration agents’ stepped-up presence in their cities.
As always, “messaging” is overrated and rarely the actual problem — the best media team in the world isn’t going to convince anyone outside of Trump’s hardcore base that military assaults on American cities and killing unthreatening citizens are good things.