Most Americans think Trump is changing Washington
By Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus, Kabir Khanna and Anthony Salvanto
Donald Trump ran for president with the promise to shake up the status quo, and most Americans (54 percent) think he is changing Washington rather than letting Washington change him. Even Democrats (49 percent) are more apt to think so.
But not all Americans see change as a good thing in this case – half of those who think Donald Trump is changing Washington disapprove of how he's handling his job as president.
In particular, the president's appointment of family members to advisory roles in his administration has raised criticism, and Americans are far more likely to view this as a negative than a positive. Forty-eight percent of Americans overall say it's a bad thing, although only 19 percent of Republicans felt this way.
Since he's been president, Donald Trump has also spent a number of weekends at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida. For 53 percent of Americans, this isn't much of a concern, including for most Republicans and independents – though Republicans don't say it is a good thing, either. Democrats think it's a bad thing.
This poll was conducted by telephone April 21-24, 2017 among a random sample of 1,214 adults nationwide. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, PA. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones.
The poll employed a random digit dial methodology. For the landline sample, a respondent was randomly selected from all adults in the household. For the cell sample, interviews were conducted with the person who answered the phone.
Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish using live interviewers. The data have been weighted to reflect U.S. Census figures on demographic variables. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher and is available by request. The margin of error includes the effects of standard weighting procedures which enlarge sampling error slightly. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.