By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Few Americans outside President Donald Trump’s Republican Party support his deployment of National Guard troops to police the streets of Washington, D.C., according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The three-day poll, which concluded on Sunday, found that just 38% of Americans support using troops for law enforcement in the U.S. capital, with 46% opposed. The rest were unsure or declined to answer the question.
Support was strongest among Republicans, 76% of whom supported the deployments, which just 8% of Democrats supported. Among people who don’t identify with either party, 28% were in favor and 51% were opposed.
The split largely mirrors the partisan contours of Trump’s overall popularity, with 40% of respondents in the poll saying they approve of his White House performance, holding at the lowest level of his current administration for three straight polls going back to late July.
Trump’s popularity has waned since his return to power in January, when 47% of Americans gave him a thumbs up. The Republican is overwhelmingly backed by members of his party and overwhelmingly disliked by Democrats. About two-thirds of independents disapprove of him.
He has aggressively pursued his second-term agenda, ordering a crackdown on unauthorized immigration and a series of trade wars with other nations while he has aimed the federal justice system at his political opponents.
Earlier this month, Trump ordered National Guard troops to help police Washington, D.C., where the Democratic Party dominates local politics, and has threatened to do the same with other major cities run by Democrats. The move, which also included a federal takeover of policing in the capital, follows years of criticism from Trump that Democrats are soft on crime.
Just 36% of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, including 8% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans – said they supported federal officials bringing the capital’s local police under federal control.
Hundreds of unarmed National Guard troops have been on Washington’s streets for the past two weeks after Trump declared a crime emergency in the district. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week authorized the troops to carry weapons.
Both federal and city crime statistics show violent crime has declined precipitously since a spike in 2023 but Washington remains among the country’s most violent places.
Democrats, including Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, have said the deployment was more about politics than about crime. Troops have been seen mostly in the city’s safest areas frequented by tourists.
Trump’s approval rating on crime – at 43% – is among the strongest areas of his public opinion portfolio, matching the share that approves of his immigration policies.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll gathered responses from 1,022 U.S. adults nationwide and had a 3 percentage point margin of error for all respondents. Its margin of error for Republicans and Democrats was 6 points, and 5 points for people who identify with neither party.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
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