Trump’s Declining Favorability in New Hampshire: What Voters Think
By Granite State Report
New Hampshire has always been slightly out of sync with the rest of the country — fiercely independent, allergic to political nonsense, and perfectly willing to split its ticket. Donald Trump embodies the opposite energy: a hyper-polarizing national figure who demands loyalty, rewards combativeness, and defines politics as a zero-sum fight.
In 2024, those two realities collided. Trump won the presidency nationally but lost New Hampshire — again. Kamala Harris carried the state 50.65% to 47.87%, making New Hampshire her narrowest win in the country and the only state Trump has failed to carry in any of his presidential elections.
Fast-forward to late 2025, and the picture is clear: Trump’s standing in New Hampshire is sliding, not collapsing, but eroding around the edges that actually decide elections — independents, suburban moderates, and voters whose politics are more “leave me alone” than “build the wall.”
This piece looks at three questions:
- What do the numbers actually show about Trump’s approval and favorability in New Hampshire?
- Which voters are moving away from him, and on which issues?
- What does that erosion say about New Hampshire’s political future — and Trump’s?
I. The Numbers: From Narrow Loss to Negative Trajectory
2024: Trump wins nationally, but not here
In 2024, Trump returned to the White House with 312 electoral votes, winning all seven key battleground states. Nationally, he narrowly beat Harris in the popular vote and expanded his share among working-class and non-white voters compared to 2020.
New Hampshire, however, didn’t go along for the ride. According to the official results, Harris defeated Trump here by about 2.8 points — 50.65% to 47.87%. Trump flipped several counties that Biden had carried in 2020, including Carroll, Rockingham, and Sullivan, but still came up short statewide.
That result fit a pattern: Trump can be competitive in New Hampshire and win Republican primaries comfortably, but he has repeatedly struggled to convert that into a general-election majority.
2024 polling: Competitive, but never really “safe Trump”
Polls throughout 2024 painted a picture of a state that was in play but skeptical:
- A Saint Anselm College poll in mid-2024 showed Trump leading Joe Biden 44–42 in a multi-candidate matchup, highlighting his strength with Republicans and defecting independents.
- After Biden stepped aside and Harris became the nominee, later Saint Anselm and UNH polling consistently showed Harris holding a small but steady lead in the state — typically in the mid-single digits.
In other words, Trump was viable in New Hampshire, but the state never really became friendly territory.
2025: The “bump” fades and the slide begins
Trump’s inauguration and early months in office delivered a small lift in New Hampshire — and then it faded.
In March 2025, a Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll of 1,597 registered voters found:
- 46% had a favorable impression of Trump
- 53% had an unfavorable impression
That was a modest improvement over pre-election numbers (44–55), and the college explicitly described it as a “modest bump in popularity” as he began his new term.
But by late August 2025, that bump had disappeared. In a follow-up Saint Anselm poll, Trump’s favorability had:
- Dropped back to 43% favorable / 57% unfavorable, which the Institute called a return to his “historical norms.”
That poll also showed:
- Only 40% of voters thought the country was headed in the right direction, down from 44% in March.
- Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot 50–44, up from a narrow 1-point edge in March.
- “Elections and democracy” had overtaken the economy as the top issue for Granite State voters.
On top of that, the UNH Granite State Poll documented a clear, continuing slide in Trump’s job approval by the end of September 2025. In its September 30 report — bluntly titled “Trump Approval Continues to Slide” — UNH summarized:
- A majority of New Hampshire residents oppose Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to American cities.
- Approval of his handling of foreign policy, the economy, and his overall job performance has declined since August.
- Approval of his handling of the economy is at its lowest point in either of Trump’s terms.
A separate UNH-linked analysis published at InDepthNH in late May noted that approval of Trump’s job performance had already “declined slightly” since inauguration, and highlighted strong opposition to his foreign policy choices — including a controversial plan to accept a jet from Qatar.
Put simply: Trump started 2025 in New Hampshire in a roughly 45–55 hole on personal favorability, briefly improved, and then slid backward. By fall 2025, both UNH and Saint Anselm were describing his approval and favorability as declining, underwater, and back to — or worse than — his historic levels here.
II. Who’s Moving Away? Look at Independents and Soft Margins
Granite State independents: The fulcrum
New Hampshire has an unusually high share of undeclared (independent) voters — roughly 40% of the electorate. They can choose which primary to vote in and regularly split tickets in general elections. Historically, they’ve been willing to vote for Republicans like John McCain, Chris Sununu, or Kelly Ayotte, even as they reject harder-edged national conservatism.
We don’t have every crosstab for every 2025 poll, but two patterns stand out:
- Republican support for Trump is rock solid
UNH and national polls consistently show around 85–90% of Republicans approve of Trump’s performance. New Hampshire polls echo that trend: UNH’s April 2025 tariff survey, for example, described Trump’s approval among state Republicans hitting a “record high” even as the broader electorate remained skeptical. - Independents are souring — hard
A July 2025 Gallup poll found Trump’s national job approval down to 37%, with independents at just 29% approval, a 17-point drop since January. That’s not New Hampshire-specific, but New Hampshire’s electorate is more independent and college-educated than the national average — precisely the demographic profile where Trump’s erosion is sharpest.
In New Hampshire, UNH’s September 2025 Granite State Poll found three-quarters of residents worried about political violence, two-thirds worried about mass shootings, and a majority opposing Trump’s National Guard deployments — a set of concerns that typically pushes independents away from leaders perceived as escalatory or divisive.
Ticket-splitters: Ayotte vs. Trump
One of the most telling data points doesn’t involve Trump directly.
- An early-2025 UNH poll found Governor Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, enjoying majority approval in her first months in office.
- By August 2025, Saint Anselm had Ayotte at 49% favorable / 46% unfavorable — roughly break-even in a polarized environment.
That’s significantly better than Trump’s 43–57 favorability in the same poll — in the same state, at the same time.
The message from voters is pretty obvious: “We’re not allergic to Republicans. We’re increasingly allergic to Trump.”
New Hampshire voters are perfectly capable of saying yes to Ayotte for governor and no to Trump for president. That’s a red flag for any strategist who thinks party loyalty alone will pull Trump’s numbers back up.
III. The Issues Dragging Trump Down in New Hampshire
The slide in Trump’s approval isn’t random. It lines up almost too neatly with three big clusters of concerns that show up repeatedly in UNH and Saint Anselm polling:
- The economy, tariffs, and affordability
- Democracy, political violence, and civil liberties
- Social issues (especially abortion) interacting with New Hampshire’s libertarian streak
1. Economy, tariffs, and affordability
In March 2025, Saint Anselm’s poll asked New Hampshire voters to name the most important issue facing the country. Top answer: the economy and inflation (23%), followed by elections and democracy (19%), and government spending and taxes (15%).
The same poll found:
- Only 46% of voters approved Trump’s handling of the economy.
- Just 41% supported his proposal for 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, one of his signature policy moves.
By April 2025, UNH reported that:
- Granite Staters overall disapproved of Trump’s use of tariffs, feared they would raise prices substantially, and saw them as a net negative for the economy.
- Republicans, by contrast, were increasingly warming to tariffs and saw them as beneficial.
That split — Republicans rallying around Trump’s trade war, everyone else worried about prices — is exactly the kind of thing that drives a wedge between the party base and independents.
Meanwhile, UNH’s May and September polls showed:
- Housing is “by far the most important problem facing the state.”
- Approval of Trump’s handling of the economy fell to its lowest point of either term by late September.
New Hampshire has a brutal combo right now: high housing costs, rising property taxes in many communities, and a tight labor market that doesn’t always translate into secure middle-class life. When voters are squeezed, “tariffs on Canada” and high-profile foreign policy drama don’t look like problem-solving; they look like distractions.
Nationally, a June 2025 Quinnipiac poll found Trump at 38% approval overall, with just 40% approval on the economy and 54% disapproval. That kind of national drag rarely improves when filtered through a higher-income, more college-educated swing state like New Hampshire.
2. Democracy, political violence, and the National Guard
The second big problem for Trump in New Hampshire is less about policy details and more about how he uses power.
The August 26–27, 2025 Saint Anselm poll found that “Elections and democracy” had overtaken the economy as the top issue for voters. That’s not the kind of thing you see in a politically comfortable country.
The UNH Granite State Poll released on September 30, 2025 is even starker:
- Three-quarters of New Hampshire residents say they’re worried about political violence.
- Two-thirds are concerned about mass shootings.
- A majority opposes Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to American cities, and few would feel safer if soldiers were deployed to cities in New Hampshire.
- Trump’s approval on foreign policy, the economy, and overall job performance have all declined since August.
Overlay that with another UNH Survey Center report from earlier in 2025, which found majorities of New Hampshire residents:
- Disapprove of the U.S. Supreme Court
- Believe justices base decisions on their personal opinions rather than the law
- Oppose the Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States, the landmark case on presidential immunity
Put it together and you get a deeply uneasy electorate: worried about political violence, skeptical of militarized responses, and increasingly hostile to the idea that presidents and judges operate above accountability.
That’s a tough environment for any leader who leans heavily on strong-man rhetoric, military symbolism, and bare-knuckle partisan combat — and Trump leans into all three.
3. Social issues, abortion, and “Live Free or Die” politics
On social issues, New Hampshire’s politics are weirdly simple: socially moderate, fiscally suspicious.
This shows up in multiple ways:
- UNH polling in recent years has found Granite Staters split or skeptical on more aggressive abortion restrictions, even when they show support for relatively late-term limits.
- In the 2024 governor’s race, media and party operatives on both sides treated abortion as a critical wedge issue; polls repeatedly showed it ranking among the top concerns alongside the economy.
Trump’s national coalition has increasingly leaned into hardline abortion politics, religious-right messaging, and culture-war fights that play very differently in Alabama than they do in Bedford or Portsmouth. New Hampshire Republicans like Ayotte have tried to finesse that tension — emphasizing moderation and respect for state law while avoiding national bans — but Trump is not a finesse politician.
Add in:
- Concerns about civil liberties as Trump pushes tightened voting rules, including stricter proof of citizenship requirements, which are now being road-tested in New Hampshire. An AP analysis of recent town elections reported strong overall support for citizenship proof (about 8 in 10 voters favored it) but also documented real-world cases of eligible voters turned away or forced to navigate cumbersome paperwork.
That mix — policy popular in the abstract, messy in practice — is classic New Hampshire friction. Voters like order and fairness, but they hate being jerked around by bureaucracy. When Trump’s name is on the executive order, he owns the frustration as well as the symbolism.
IV. The Foreign Policy Factor: Qatar, Ukraine, and the Jet
Foreign policy doesn’t usually dominate state-level approval, but Trump has managed to make it matter in New Hampshire — in ways that hurt him.
The May 29, 2025 UNH Granite State Poll report, published by InDepthNH, highlighted a specific flashpoint: Trump’s plan to accept a jet from Qatar.
Key findings:
- Most New Hampshire residents thought the jet plan was “inappropriate.”
- Nearly half thought the U.S. should support Ukraine more and help it retake lost territory even if it prolonged the war with Russia.
- At the same time, Trump’s overall job approval had declined slightly since inauguration.
That’s not the profile of a state sold on “America First” as Trump defines it. New Hampshire, with a high share of veterans and a strong tradition of international engagement (and skepticism of foreign strongmen), is inclined to see foreign policy not as a TV show, but as a moral and strategic question.
When Trump is perceived as cozy with authoritarian regimes while scolding allies, that doesn’t land well in a state where even Republicans remember John McCain as a kind of secular saint.
V. Style, Fatigue, and the “Enough Already” Vote
There’s also the less quantifiable problem: Trump fatigue.
National polling throughout 2025 shows Trump’s overall approval stuck in the high-30s to low-40s, with large majorities describing him as divisive, controversial, or a source of political chaos, even among some who like his policies.
In New Hampshire, that fatigue expresses itself in several ways:
- Protests and pushback against major Trump initiatives, such as the executive order to begin dismantling the Department of Education, which drew public demonstrations in Manchester.
- Local coverage that often frames Trump’s actions in terms of disruption — shutdowns, executive orders, tariffs — and then immediately interviews Granite Staters dealing with the fallout: furloughed federal workers, food banks, school districts, or manufacturers.
The longer Trump is in the public eye, the harder it becomes for him to reinvent himself. New Hampshire voters have now seen him as:
- An insurgent candidate (2016)
- A sitting president (2017–2021)
- A twice-impeached, indicted former president (2021–2024)
- A comeback winner (2024 election)
- A sitting president again (2025–)
At some point, the show stops being new. Voters who once thought, “Let’s roll the dice” increasingly say, “We’ve already seen this movie.”
That doesn’t mean they all flip to Democrats. Many simply check out, split their ticket, or move into a grumpy middle where they dislike everybody — but they are more likely to punish the loudest face of Washington, which is still Trump.
CNN segment: “Voters from town hall weigh in on Trump’s performance” featuring New Hampshire voters
VI. How Deep Is the Slide — and Can Trump Recover?
Not a free fall, but a real erosion
Trump’s numbers in New Hampshire are not catastrophic. A 43–57 favorability split is bad, but it isn’t 30–70. Given how polarized the country is, that basically means:
- Most Republicans still like him.
- Most Democrats really dislike him.
- Independents lean against him but aren’t unanimously hostile.
What’s changed since early 2024 is not the base. It’s the margins:
- In mid-2024, Trump could lead Harris or Biden in some polls, or trail narrowly, depending on turnout and third-party noise.
- By late 2025, multiple data points show his job approval and favorability slipping, Democrats gaining on the congressional ballot, and top concerns shifting from bread-and-butter issues to “elections and democracy” and fear of political violence — spaces where Trump is inherently vulnerable.
New Hampshire is not turning into Vermont. It’s still competitive, still allergic to big government, and still willing to vote Republican down-ballot. But Trump is now running against the grain of the state’s temperament instead of with it.
WMUR clip: “New Hampshire voters split on support for Trump’s tariffs”
What could change the trajectory?
Barring some massive external shock, three things would likely determine whether Trump’s approval keeps sliding or stabilizes:
- Economic reality on the ground
If New Hampshire’s housing crisis eases, wages keep pace with costs, and any collateral damage from tariffs or federal budget fights stays minimal, some economic grievances may soften. But if affordability continues to deteriorate, voters are going to keep blaming whoever sits in the Oval Office. - Whether Trump turns down the temperature — or cranks it up
In a state where three-quarters are worried about political violence and a majority oppose National Guard deployments in American cities, doubling down on “toughness” and militarization is likely to make things worse, not better. - How New Hampshire Republicans handle the Trump brand
Politicians like Kelly Ayotte and local GOP legislators have a choice: tie themselves tightly to Trump, or maintain distance and emphasize local pragmatism. So far, the most successful Republicans in the state have leaned toward the latter. Voters appear to reward that separation.
VII. What New Hampshire Is Really Saying
Strip away the noise and New Hampshire’s message to Trump is pretty simple:
- “We’ll listen to you.” (He keeps doing big numbers in primaries.)
- “We might even vote for some of your allies.” (Republicans have made statewide gains and hold the governor’s office and legislature.)
- “But we are not signing a blank check — on power, on truth, or on how you use the military and the law.”
The data from Saint Anselm and UNH show:
- Sliding approval on the economy and foreign policy
- Stubbornly negative favorability
- Growing concern about democracy, political violence, and how far a president should be able to go before anyone can hold him accountable
That’s not just about Trump. It’s about the country he’s shaping — and how that country looks from a small, stubbornly independent state whose motto is still “Live Free or Die.”
If Trump wants to stop his approval ratings from eroding further in New Hampshire, he’d have to do something he has rarely done: change the story from himself to the voters — their housing costs, their schools, their sense of safety, and their ability to live free without feeling like the republic is perpetually on the brink.
Right now, the numbers say he hasn’t done that. And Granite Staters are responding the way they usually do when national politicians don’t listen: by quietly, steadily, turning away.
Hannity-hosted focus group: “Focus Group Of New Hampshire Voters React To Donald Trump”
References:
- Saint Anselm College Survey Center. (2025, March 10). New Poll by Saint Anselm College Survey Center Shows President Donald Trump With a Modest Bump in Popularity.
- Saint Anselm College Survey Center. (2025, September 5). New Saint Anselm College Survey Center Poll Reveals Shifting Political Landscape Ahead of 2028 Primary.
- UNH Survey Center. (2025, May 29). UNH Poll: Granite Staters Oppose Trump’s Foreign Policy Choices, Divided on State Bills. InDepthNH.org.
- UNH Survey Center. (2025, September 30). Granite Staters Worried About Political Violence, Mass Shootings; Trump Approval Continues to Slide.
- UNH Survey Center. (2025, April 23). NH Republicans Close Ranks Around Trump Amid Tariff Fears.
- University of New Hampshire. (2024). 2024 United States presidential election in New Hampshire.
- WMUR-TV. (2024, Oct. 30). Poll: Harris continues to lead Trump in New Hampshire.
- WMUR-TV. (2024–2025). Election and reaction coverage, including town-by-town NH Trump results and shutdown fallout.
- Gallup / Politico. (2025, July 24). Independents are increasingly souring on Trump, new poll finds.
- Quinnipiac University / Politico. (2025, June 11). Trump is under water on some of his top issues — including immigration, poll shows.
- Associated Press. (2025, March). New Hampshire town elections and citizenship-proof voting rules.
