Published: March 1, 2025, 9:00 p.m. MST by Suzanne Bates at Deseret News

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In the six weeks since Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term as president, he has signed 76 executive orders, including 26 on his first day in office.

They cover a broad range of issues, from energy to health care to foreign policy, and they’ve inspired dozens of lawsuits, many filed by Democratic attorneys general.

In a new poll conducted by HarrisX for the Deseret News, Americans were asked about a broad range of issues covered by Trump’s executive orders, and a clear pattern emerged on what actions they favored most.

Among the top five most popular executive orders, three had to do with gender — including a block on transgender women participating in women’s sports, another declaring the federal government would only recognize two sexes in place of gender, and one that ends federal coverage of transgender treatments for minors.

There are echoes in these findings of ads run by the Trump campaign in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign that some pundits say put Trump ahead of his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris. One of the ads describes how Harris supported publicly-funded transgender surgery for prisoners, and ends with the line, “Kamala Harris is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”

“This one ad may have won Donald Trump the election,” former CNN commentator Chris Cillizza wrote on his substack.

The most popular executive order out of the 22 on the survey was Trump’s decision to ban transgender women in female sports. More than 8 out of 10 Republicans said they support that order, while almost 6 in 10 independent voters said the same. This was also Trump’s most popular order among Democrats, but only 4 in 10 Democratic voters said they supported his action on this issue.

When asked if they favored Trump’s executive order “ending gender-affirming care and gender transition for those under age 19,” 57% of Americans expressed support, including 82% of Republicans, 53% of independents and 34% of Democrats. This decision was more popular with men (63%) than women (51%), and was popular with religious voters, with 8 out of 10 evangelical Christians expressing support and 6 out of 10 Catholics.

Support for Trump’s executive order saying the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female, received very similar support by survey respondents.

The other two executive orders rounding out the top five were support for declassifying records on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King was supported by 57% of respondents, and building a border wall and deploying law enforcement to the southern border was also supported by 57%.

The poll was conducted among a representative sample of 1,009 Americans on Feb. 14-15, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Poll: Trump’s executive order on renaming Gulf of Mexico least popular

On the other end of the spectrum, voters do not appear to appreciate Trump’s decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Only 35% of Americans said they support this decision, including 61% of Republicans, 15% of Democrats and 26% of independents.

The Associated Press’ decision not to change their style guide to reflect Trump’s order to rename the body of water led to the White House’s decision to exclude the AP from covering Trump at certain events, as well as his press conferences in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One. A federal judge recently allowed the Trump administration to keep the ban in place while the lawsuit continued.

Other orders or ideas that received poor support included dismantling the Department of Education, with only 37% support, ending birthright citizenship, with 41% support, withdrawing from the World Health Organization, with 41% support, and banning all federal diversity, equity and inclusion, with 41% support.

Dismantling DEI programs was very popular among Republicans, with 73% saying they approved of Trump’s decision, but only 21% of Democrats and 35% of independents said the same.

Poll: Trump’s planned tariffs on Mexico and Canada unpopular

While campaigning for president, Trump said frequently he planned to place tariffs on goods coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico. He said the tariffs were in retaliation for the flow of migrants and fentanyl coming across the borders.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have both pushed back on the president’s assertions. So far, Trump has held off on levying the tariffs, but that could change in the coming days. Trump said on Thursday he would levy 25% tariffs on goods coming across the nation’s borders starting on Tuesday, March 4.

That move is not popular with Americans. Only 43% said they approved of putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada, while 46% said they don’t approve.

Americans were also slightly more likely to say they don’t agree with Trump’s decision to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, with 43% approving compared to 45% who don’t approve.

Do Americans like DOGE?

On the other hand, Americans were much more likely to say they like Trump’s decision to establish the Department of Government Efficiency, which is run by Elon Musk.

Forty-six percent of Americans said they approve of DOGE, compared to 40% who don’t. But while 75% of Republicans approve, only 40% of independent voters said the same, compared to 45% of independents who said they don’t support the president’s decision. Unsurprisingly, Democrats do not like DOGE — only 19% expressed support for the cost-slashing department.

Another popular move by Trump includes his decision to pause Congress’ decision to shut down the app TikTok. He said it needs to be sold, but let the app stay up in the meantime. That decision was less popular with the older crowd — only 37% of people aged 65 or older said the approved of Trump’s decision.

On Trump’s decision to pause refugees coming into the U.S. for 90 days, 46% of Americans said they support the decision compared to 37% who were opposed.

While Pope Francis has criticized Trump over his immigration policies, including his treatment of refugees, and the Catholic Church has sued the Trump administration over the freezing of refugee resettlement funds, 50% of Catholics who responded to the survey said they support Trump’s decision to pause refugee resettlement. Fifty-four percent of evangelical Christians said the same, while 46% of non-evangelical Christians said they approved of Trump’s decision.

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