Nearly a year into Trump’s second term, American politics and life have seen dramatic changes—or have they? That’s the question our friends at the American Communities Project (ACP) explored in a new major survey.1 In their report, ACP gauged Americans’ outlook on the country, its present, and its future. They found some stark differences along partisan lines, but there were also important areas of agreement that might offer openings for bipartisan cooperation moving forward. Below are some key takeaways from ACP’s research.
Hopefulness for the Future Is Shaped by Politics
Compared to 2024, every community type that supported Kamala Harris for president in the 2024 election has become less hopeful about the country’s future, while all but one of those places that voted for Trump are now more optimistic. On average, about 48 percent of respondents in Harris-voting areas say they are hopeful about the future of the U.S. in the next few years compared to 59 percent of people in areas that backed Trump. One year ago, those figures were 53 percent and 50 percent, respectively.
When looking over the long term, these trends basically hold. However, people in some communities are even less hopeful looking beyond the next few years, including Hispanic Centers (-4 percent; more on these places in a minute) and Evangelical Hubs (-7 percent). At the same time, LDS Enclaves and Graying America are more hopeful about the country’s long-term outlook than they are about the immediate future.
These findings likely won’t come as a surprise to some readers. Extensive polling has shown that in contemporary America, one’s views about the state of the country are often closely tied to the perception of how much power their side has—specifically, whether their preferred party controls the White House. This has included views about the state of the economy and trust in election results, and we can now add “hope for the future” to that list, too.
Buyer’s Remorse Among a Key Constituency?
Though hope for the future mapped fairly neatly onto the community types’ voting trends, there was one kind of place that voted for Trump but is today less hopeful: Hispanic Centers. In 2024, voters in these 178 counties backed President Trump by ten points after supporting Biden by two. However, evidence from ACP and elsewhere suggests Republicans are losing ground—quickly—with many of them.
According to ACP, at least some of this shift stems from these voters’ discontent around the issue of immigration. As they write:
[Many of Trump’s policy changes] are slow-moving by their nature. The administration’s efforts around immigration, however, have been different. The impacts have been much more immediate and have generated a lot of headlines and dramatic video. Those efforts have also largely targeted the nation’s Hispanic/Latino population. Taken together, it’s reasonable to think those changes could be a big part of the drop in hopefulness in Hispanic Centers.
Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of survey respondents living in Hispanic Centers report noticing changes in immigration in their communities this year, more than any other type of place except Big Cities. Moreover, 60 percent said these changes are negative.
ACP’s findings mirror evidence from this month’s national elections suggesting there may be some reversion among Hispanic voters, as majority-Hispanic cities and counties swung back toward the Democrats. It remains to be seen whether Trump was an anomaly or whether future Republicans can keep his gains, but it’s clear that many Hispanic Americans are not happy with the direction of the country—or with President Trump—at present.
Inflation Is King, but Other Issues Are Rising
Consistent with most polling from at least the past year, Americans in ACP’s survey said that, for the third year in a row, inflation was the top issue facing both their communities (50 percent) and the nation (41 percent). This was true both nationally and in every single community type, regardless of its political lean. Additionally, a whopping 81 percent of all respondents reported noticing changes in inflation or rising prices in the past year.
There are two interesting outliers in this dataset: first, people living in LDS enclaves were far likelier than anyone else to say inflation was a problem in their community, with nearly two-thirds calling it their top issue. And secondly, those living in Big Cities were less likely than others to identify inflation as the biggest issue nationally, though it was still a plurality view (37 percent) even in these places. This may offer a clue as to why Democrats, who disproportionately inhabit Big Cities, struggled not only to message on inflation in 2024 but to convince the public they were taking it seriously.
Today, though, it has become the Republicans’ albatross. President Trump’s inability to get high prices under control has undoubtedly been a big factor in the GOP’s recent electoral struggles as well as his own sinking approval rating. If they fail to make serious strides between now and this time next year, it seems likely they will face a reckoning at the ballot box.
Behind inflation, there are a handful of other issues on people’s minds, especially at the national level, including political polarization (27 percent) and immigration (26 percent). Another issue that popped in several places was business and government corruption. As the ACP report observed:
Government or business corruption has jumped as a national issue of concern from 2024 to 2025. This year, 23 percent of Americans cited it as a top-three issue. Last year, just 14 percent did. Leading the shift were dense, multicultural populations that did not vote for President Trump. Big Cities leaped 14 percent, while Urban Suburbs jumped 13 percent and the African American South 12 percent. However, corruption also rose as an issue in places that did vote for Trump, including Hispanic Centers, LDS Enclaves, and Military Posts.
One Possible Area of Agreement: AI
Despite very real attitudinal differences across ACP’s 15 community types, there are some issues on which Americans are more aligned. The big one in this survey was the future of artificial intelligence. Nationally, only one-quarter (26 percent) of Americans had a positive feeling about AI’s potential future impact on people’s ability to earn a living. Meanwhile, 62 percent believe there should be more regulation of AI. This view was shared across community types ranging from more liberal Big Cities and Urban Suburbs (66 percent each) to Republican-leaning places like the Exurbs (67 percent) and Graying America (65 percent).
These findings dovetail with other recent survey data. In Blue Rose Research’s 2024 post-election autopsy, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) agreed that “within the next 10 years, we will have AI that can perform most jobs better than humans can”—and the overwhelming majority (79 percent) believe this will be a bad thing.
These results show an American public that remains frustrated by persistently high prices, the country’s divisiveness, and a perception that the government and big business are not only not being responsive but in it for themselves. Such a toxic formula typically bodes poorly for the party in power, as evidenced by this year’s election results. We will be keeping an eye on ACP’s future research to see how all this evolves over the next 12 months and beyond. In the meantime, we strongly encourage folks to read their full, excellent survey report, which can be found here.
Regular TLP readers might remember a three-part series we did this past spring exploring 15 different community types that ACP created based on demographics, voting habits, health patterns, and more. Using that typology, they regularly administer surveys in each kind of place to discern how these factors and others have shaped and changed people’s attitudes over time.
Two things. I am having a hard time having perspective around the hopeful numbers without data on how this typically shows after a change in president over the past 30 years. So republicans increased about 9 points and Democrats decreased about 5, a spread of 14 points. How does this compare over time. Honestly I thought the numbers might have been worse based on what you read in media
Secondly I think it is going to be a very difficult job on aligning a position/ laws on AI when we don’t have a national vision or strategy on the key areas it would fit under. When many of our so called strategies have constraints as objectives vs needs this makes working in the impact of new technology such as AI extremely difficult so that almost certainly it will become dysfunctional.
Very good article (once again).
Here is one thing we find interesting. The survey didn't assess reactions to the National Debt being out of control and climbing constantly, and what that means for the futures of our grandchildren. It is an issue that politicians don't talk about, people proposing "solutions" (like free child care, government run medical care, etc.) don't talk about, and pundits rarely (if ever) talk about it. there are no solutions (strong statement, we know) offered to America's problems that don't involve the government printing money......money that our grandchildren will have to earn.
That's our #1 concern for the future. (p.s. we are in the "graying America" category, so this makes sense given that we have 14 & 1/2 grandchildren).
But it is our worry.
p.s. also interesting that public safety wasn't part of the survey apparently. Safety is, according to Maslow's hierarchy a fundamental need, next to physiological needs (food, shelter, etc.). So, policing, the military, etc., should, according to his hierarchy, be on peoples' minds.