New poll: Democrats lead House generic ballot; deportations unpopular; Musk party flops
Results from the July Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll
Summary of main poll findings:
Americans remain deeply dissatisfied with the political status quo and increasingly pessimistic about the nation’s direction, according to the July Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll.
Democrats currently hold a slight edge on the generic ballot for House races, and President Donald Trump and his legislative agenda remain broadly unpopular, particularly on key issues like deportations, inflation, and health care.
The Republicans’ budget bill, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” is also unpopular, especially its cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food benefits. Our previous poll found that voters preferred raising taxes to offset spending, instead of increasing the deficit by slashing revenues.
And although most Americans say they're open to backing a third-party candidate, support collapses dramatically (by over 60%) when Elon Musk’s "America Party" is offered as a specific alternative.
This poll contains results for two topics (the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill and Elon Musk’s new third party) that were suggested by Strength In Numbers subscribers. Subscribe to our newsletter today to stay up to date on our August survey and have a chance to ask your own question to the American people.
Methodology note: Verasight conducted this poll among 1,500 U.S. adult residents from July 14–16, 2025. It has a margin of error of 2.7%.
To ensure editorial independence and data integrity, Strength In Numbers intentionally has no input on poll methodology, other than question wording and sample size. Strength In Numbers does not participate in decisions about weighting, determine sample targets, etc. We conduct all analysis — including processing data, creating the topline document, and writing editorial content — without Verasight’s oversight. Sometimes, we send this article to Verasight early (after it has been finalized) for planning purposes.
You can download a PDF of the poll results and a full methodology statement at the bottom of this page.
Democrats have a four-point edge on the House generic ballot
Democrats lead the House "generic ballot" 47% to 43%, with 9% undecided. (The generic ballot is a survey question that asks voters which party’s candidate they would support in their local U.S. House race if the election were held today, without naming specific candidates.)
The Democrats' 4-point margin in our July poll is less than their 8-point margin in June and 6-point margin in May, though the differences are within the margin of error. We cannot say that there has been real movement in the public, versus noise in our sampling.
The party in control of the presidency typically loses ground over the course of the midterm election cycle. For context, at a comparable point in the 2021–22 cycle, Democrats led Republicans in the generic ballot by roughly three percentage points, but went on to lose the House popular vote by three. In 2018, Democrats extended their early margin by D+6 to D+8 over the 16 months to Election Day. Read more about what we can learn from early generic ballot polls here.
Most Americans say we are on the wrong track
Zooming out, just 32% say the United States is on the “right track,” while 58% say it is on the “wrong track” (10% are unsure).
“Wrong‑track” sentiment has ticked up three points since mid‑May (from 55 to 58%) in our tracking, while “right‑track” responses have hovered around the low‑30s. The stability of pessimism underscores how deeply unhappy Americans are with their leaders, something that’s constant throughout different news cycles.
It is not uncommon in recent American history for the difference between "right" and "wrong" track to exceed 20 points for years at a time.
Trump's approval underwater, falling on immigration and deportation
Trump’s overall job approval is 42% approve vs. 57% disapprove (net -15) in our July poll. This is little changed since our June poll, with both Trump's approval and disapproval ticking up within the margin of error (and in the case of approval, not enough to round to a new digit — Trump’s approval rounds to 42% in both polls).
On an issue-by-issue basis, Trump is only positive on border security, with 51% of adults approving of the job he is doing and 45% disapproving.
The biggest news is on immigration. While Trump began his term with a strong lead on immigration, it has since turned negative (45% approve / 52% disapprove ). Trump is also underwater on deportations (43% / 53%) and the economy (42% / 52%), two issues that helped him win in 2024.
Trump’s only bright spot is on the economy, where the net gap between approve and disapprove has shrunk by 7 points since May. He has also improved slightly on trade since May. These two trends are likely due to an easing of his global trade war.
Trump took a large dive from May to July on health care (-16 to -23), reflecting backlash to the Medicaid cuts on the Republican budget.
The Big Beautiful Bill is underwater
At this point, the vast majority of Americans have heard something about Republicans' “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed earlier this month. According to our Strength In Numbers/Verasight survey, 47% of adults have heard “a great deal” about the bill, and another 33% have heard “some" about it.
Major policy components of the bill test poorly, some exceedingly so. Cuts to Medicaid spending are opposed 62%–23%. Similarly, 62% oppose cuts to food assistance (SNAP).
By a slightly narrower 52%–36% margin, adults are against the additional DHS/CBP/ICE funding in the OBBBA, which is to be used for expanded detention facilities, hiring, and border enforcement. The bill’s tax provisions — extending Trump’s 2017 cuts and exempting some taxes on overtime and tip — are opposed by a comparatively rosy 45%, with 39% in favor.
When it comes to partisan splits, even self-described Republicans are split on Trump's Medicaid cuts (35% oppose, 43% support), while political independents oppose every provision by >20 points. While Republicans favor extending tax cuts and increasing ICE funding, they are pulled underwater by steep opposition from political independents and Democrats.
Looking to the midterms, high awareness of and broad opposition to the OBBBA suggest Republicans will have a hard time persuading voters to hand them control for another 2 years.
Voters want a third-party, but not Musk's
In recent months, Democratic favorability ratings have remained low, with many pundits expressing concerns about the party's perceived embrace of progressive or "woke" policies. This skepticism toward Democrats is a key factor in the party's negative press coverage since the 2024 election.
But our data reveals that, from an ideological angle, the public does not view the Democrats as uniquely extreme. In fact, if anything, voters view the Republicans as slightly too far-right, compared to the share that thinks the Democrats are too far-left.
Among adults, 40% say the Democratic Party has moved “too far left,” while 42% say the GOP has moved “too far right.” Roughly one‑third see either party as staying fairly close to the ideological center (35 % for Democrats, 33 % for Republicans), underscoring the widespread perception that “both parties have gone off course.”
This suggests the Democratic Party’s overall struggle to achieve a positive favorability has more to do with leadership and how the party resonates with workers, rather than ideological positions.
When asked if they thought the parties represented them well, a majority (52%) of U.S. adults says “a major third party is needed,” while only 22% think the existing parties do an adequate job.
Yet appetite for specific alternatives varies. Among respondents who feel unrepresented by the major parties, 41% say they would be somewhat (23%) or very (18%) likely to vote for a generic independent/third‑party congressional candidate.
However, only 7% say they would be “very likely” to support Elon Musk’s “America Party” candidate, a 60% decline relative to the generic third-party option.
We compared support for a generic third party and Musk’s America Party using a survey experiment: Half of our sample (about 750 adults each) was randomly selected to see a version of the question mentioning Musk, and the other half got the neutral question. The difference in support for a third-party candidate between these questions can then be attributed to mentioning Musk’s party specifically.
These poll results show that Americans are open to a third party in theory, but when you attach a real name and brand (especially one as polarizing as Musk) that support drops off a cliff. The desire for something new is real, but the specifics matter a lot too.
What news is breaking through?
As part of our Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, we are engaged in ongoing tracking of the public’s information diet. As in our June survey, we again asked respondents to name the one news story that stuck with them most over the past month.
The word cloud below visualizes individual terms people mentioned, scaled to reflect how frequently each appeared.
When we bucket those open‑ended answers into policy domains, immigration and deportation policy dominate, followed by foreign affairs and the tariff debate. Domestic economic issues remain surprisingly low on the self‑reported agenda.
We also asked Americans which sources they get their news from. Traditional television outlets remain core sources: for example, 38% regularly get news from Fox News, 36% from ABC News, 33% from NBC, and 32% from CNN. But print and new digital sources also draw large audiences, including 15% who read The Washington Post, 21% who subscribe to the New York Times, and 12% who watch the podcaster Joe Rogan. More details can be found in the topline document below.
With just over 15 months left until the midterms, Democrats maintain a modest but real generic ballot advantage, while voters distrust Trump on nearly every front. Yet the electorate is not as enthusiastic about voting for Democrats as they were at this point in 2018, and the party's favorability ratings remain deep underwater. The question the party faces is whether it can turn anti-Trump resistance into pro-Democrat sentiment.
Verasight conducted this poll for Strength In Numbers from July 14–16, 2025. The survey was weighted to match the political and demographic characteristics of the U.S. adult population according to the April 2025 Current Population Survey, as well as recent benchmarks for partisanship, past vote, and news source.
Verasight uses mail, SMS text, and the internet to recruit a sample using both probability-based and non-probability techniques. Verasight handled recruitment, interviewing, and weighting.
You can download a full topline file and methodology document using the link below:
For any questions, please email polling@gelliottmorris.com.
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Not long ago I was talking to someone who is considering running for office in Iowa as an independent. This person kept citing polls showing a growing number Americans don't like either party and say they want a third-party option. I kept trying to explain that most of those people will not actually be willing to cast a ballot for an independent with no chance of winning.
Democrats need new leadership. These polls make it so clear, if the fecklessness of current leadership didn’t already make it obvious enough. The good news is that I don’t see support for Trump Republicans going up any higher than this, while Democrats are likely still closer to their floor.