Trump in Charge: Voters Say the President Is Driving the Agenda

President Donald Trump signs the Presidential Space Directive – 1, directing NASA to return to the moon, alongside members of the Senate, Congress, NASA, and commercial space companies in the Roosevelt room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

Whether they agree with him or not, more voters say President Donald Trump is driving the national agenda in Washington, D.C. and the sentiment crosses party lines.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 42% of likely voters think President Trump is in charge of The Swamp, while the Republican-led Congress came in a very distant second with 19%. Thirteen percent (13%) say the national media is in charge and only 8% feel the Democratic opposition is setting the agenda.

Nearly as many (7%) think it’s someone else, and 12% are undecided.

Men (46%) are slightly more likely than women (38%) to say the man in the White House is in charge, though 45% of both Republicans and Democrats agree. Similarly, a nearly identical percentage of conservatives (44%) and liberals (45%) view it the same way, while 38% of moderates also agree.

Worth noting, 40% now say the country is headed in the right direction, which is the highest level of optimism since mid-April after lagging in the mid- to upper 20s for much of 2016. Following Inauguration Day, optimism in the direction of the county rose to the mid-to upper 40s and remained there for the first month of his presidency.

Seventy-one (71%) of Republicans credit President Trump with the improving economic condition in the U.S., while 23% of Democrats and 44% of voters unaffiliated with any party agree.

Just looking at polling data, Trump and the GOP have one major challenge: to increase the percentage of voters who give him/them due credit for improving economy. It's rising, but it needs to be higher for them to avoid losing the House. The Senate is an entirely different story.

— Richard Baris (@Peoples_Pundit) January 4, 2018

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on December 27-28, 2017 and the margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.