President Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda to remake the economy and U.S. government is broadly unpopular in the Bay Area, with a majority of voters expecting the Republican to make life worse.
In a poll in August by Bay Area News Group, 68% of those surveyed said they expect the Trump administration’s policies to negatively impact the Bay Area, and 63% said they expect their own lives to worsen because of Trump’s actions and those of his Republican allies in Congress.
In the survey, 51% of Democrats said criticisms of progressives were somewhat or mostly fair. Even more independent voters, 76%, agreed, as did 89% of Republicans. The poll surveyed 1,634 registered voters across five counties, The margin of error was 2.7%.
Russell Hancock, president and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, said conservatives have zeroed in on progressivism and used it as a “catch-all” term for the state’s homelessness crisis, environmental policies, defense of LGBTQ+ people, and more.
The polling result “does indicate that we’re feeling brow-beaten and reflective,” he said.
This year, Newsom and top Democrats in California rolled back some progressive policies amid concerns that the party was out of touch with working class voters, while passing reforms intended to reduce the cost of living. A Bay Area News Group analysis after the 2024 election found that Trump made the most headway with region’s low-income voters, and Newsom quickly promised to address the state’s infamous cost of living.
Aside from sky-high housing costs, energy rates in California are on average nearly double the rest of the U.S., the state routinely posts the highest gasoline prices in the nation and California is tied with Louisiana for the highest poverty rate.
The anti-Trump fervor in the Bay Area is nothing new, but it could have national implications. The survey of voters in the core Bay Area — Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, plus San Francisco — was conducted as Newsom and national Democratic heavyweights debuted their plan to temporarily gerrymander California’s congressional districts after Republicans in Texas moved to do so at the White House’s behest.
California voters are set to consider that plan, Proposition 50, in November, and campaigning is fierce. It’s one way Newsom is raising his national profile. If voters reject the plan, Republicans would gain a significant advantage in the 2026 midterm elections that are key to Trump’s continued success with his agenda.
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The new Bay Area poll shows Trump’s funding cuts to universities are the most unpopular of the Republican administration’s policies, followed by tariffs. Universities are a major employer in the Bay, and California economists estimate that tariffs would clobber the state’s trade-dependent economy and contribute to the state’s $12 billion budget deficit. In the survey, 75% of respondents said university funding cuts will make the Bay Area worse off, and 73% said the same about tariffs.
Poll respondent Brianna Rodriguez, 28, of Fremont, said she works three jobs to pay the bills. She has watched her relatives in Mexico thrive with professional jobs while her family struggles to make ends meet in the U.S.
Rodriguez, a Democrat, is worried that the price of goods will spike further as companies pass the costs of Trump’s tariffs onto consumers.
“Basically, everything that you buy is made from different countries,” she said.
Also unpopular are the Republican administration’s cuts to Medicaid, the federal health program for low-income people. In the survey, 71% were opposed to the cuts. Among them is Rafael Daly, 51, who has lived in the same rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco’s Knob Hill neighborhood for nearly 30 years. A private caterer for the city’s elite and an independent voter, Daly said he is a Medicaid recipient.
“We’re all getting quieter and quieter and quieter while this guy destroys this beautiful democracy that was the best in the world,” Daly said.
Shane Connolly, past president of the Silicon Valley GOP, dismissed the survey’s evidence of local opposition to Trump’s policies and said Bay Area voters are actually opposed to the president’s personality, not his actions.
“It’s almost cult-like behavior,” he said. “I talk to a lot of these people. If Trump is for it, they will be against it.”
Not all in the Bay Area are Trump opponents. San Jose resident Ivanjoe Colonna, 30, voted for Trump twice. He has mixed reviews of the Republican president.
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“He’s a symbol of strength, I can tell you that much, after that failed assassination attempt,” said Colonna, a machine gunner in the Marine Corps Reserve. “He’s a politician, so he’s corrupt nonetheless.”
But Colonna has no love for Newsom either. He said his hometown in Silicon Valley has become “overcrowded and violent” since 2018, when Newsom ran for governor. He plans to move to Madera, where he believes it’s safer to raise his young son.
In their voter persuasion campaign for Proposition 50, Newsom and Democrats are trying to frame the measure as a battle against Trump and Republicans nationally — a wise decision, said David McCuan, a professor of political science at Sonoma State University who has studied ballot measures.
“A ‘yes’ vote has to be a referendum on Trump,” McCuan said.