Here’s how to judge Trump’s first year back in office.
By Natalie Jackson
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Dec. 31, 2024, 2:21 p.m.
The calendar is turning to 2025, signaling the end of a long, strange election year. But the country is still in a mood—a bad mood. We learned in November that voters are overwhelmingly cranky —but we knew that all along, as it turned out.
The five measures below told us what would happen in 2024, and those same five numbers will tell the story of 2025.
The first number is public opinion on the country as a whole. I’m not the biggest fan of questions like, “Do you think the country is going in the right direction or the wrong direction?” because they are so broad that we have no idea what people are thinking about when they answer. It’s also true that Republicans answer more positively when there is a Republican president, and vice versa with Democrats.
Republicans and Democrats mostly cancel each other out, though, leaving independents driving the trend lines—which is useful as a general vibes check. The mood has been pessimistic since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Gallup’s latest measure, only 19 percent of the country (20 percent of independents) think the country is moving in the right direction. If we start to see some improvement on this metric, it will be a positive sign for the Trump administration.
The second number more directly measures opinion on the Trump administration—the presidential approval rating. There has been some debate in recent years over how well presidential approval predicts election outcomes, but dissatisfaction with the Biden administration was clearly part of the picture of the 2024 election. Trump’s approval rating might start off above 50 percent, but expect it to fall off during the first year as it does with most presidents. How much it drops will tell us a lot about Republicans’ potential losses heading into the 2026 midterm election year.
We turn to Congress for the third number: the number of times that Republicans will have to rely on Democrats to help pass legislation due to defections in their narrow majority. We’re coming off the least productive Congress in a few decades, and as the recent continuing-resolution debacle made clear, this one could be just as inefficient despite the Republican trifecta.
We’ll have a strong indicator soon enough: how many votes it takes to elect a speaker of the House. If Republicans can stay unified enough to reelect Speaker Mike Johnson on the first ballot, it may bode well for the party’s ambitious legislative agenda. If it takes multiple votes—despite President-elect Trump endorsing Johnson—or requires help from Democrats, expect trouble all year.
For the last two numbers, we turn to the major issues that drove the election: the cost of living and immigration.
Consumer sentiment and most macro indicators like jobs growth and unemployment show a good and growing economy. Even inflation has been at a normal level for a while. But we know Americans have been very negative about the economy due to increased prices, so we need a measure that captures that sentiment. For that, we should use measures of real costs that all families face: groceries, gas, rent, utilities, and health care. The Consumer Price Index tracks this sort of inflation—Trump needs to keep it consistently low throughout the year. He campaigned on lowering these costs—but since the election he has admitted it will be difficult. If basic costs continue rising without substantial wage growth, it spells trouble for the new administration.
Progress on immigration is a bit easier to measure. The number of illegal border crossings is a decent metric. But there is still a catch: Border-crossing arrests have been down since the Biden administration clamped down on enforcement in June, and current levels are roughly similar to what we saw during Trump’s first term.
Trump will need to keep that level low and make progress on deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records in order to deliver on his campaign promises. A wild card here could be a debate over legal immigration, but for now, my number to watch is net illegal immigration: border crossings minus deportations. The lower that figure stays, the better it is for Trump.
If the administration keeps these five numbers in good shape throughout 2025—maximizing positive sentiment, being able to move legislation in Congress, and making progress on the two big issues that got Trump elected—voters are likely to get more sanguine, especially about Republican leadership.
If these numbers don’t move or get worse by the end of 2025, we will be looking at a tough midterm year for the Republican Congress. Democrats are already chomping at the bit to take advantage of any signs of weakness in 2026.
Contributing editor Natalie Jackson is a vice president at GQR Research.
