A plurality of Americans say the Department of Government Efficiency is cutting too much, according to a new poll.
Backing for cutting waste, fraud and abuse generally earns praise from Americans, but DOGE’s push for mass layoffs and shuttering entire agencies soured many voters.
The Center Square Voter’s Voice poll released this week asked registered voters about DOGE and found that 47% of those surveyed said “DOGE is cutting too much.”
Another 28% said “DOGE is getting it right” while 12% said “DOGE is not cutting enough.” The remaining 14% are unsure.
Support for DOGE varies widely by political party. According to The Center Square’s survey, only 19% of Republicans say DOGE is cutting too much, while 48% said DOGE is getting it right. Another 18% said DOGE is not cutting enough.
Democrats reported the opposite sentiment, with 75% saying DOGE is cutting too much and only 10% saying DOGE is getting it right while 5% said DOGE should cut more.
Notably, 49% of “true independents” say DOGE is cutting too much, compared to only 15% who say DOGE is getting it right and 13% who say DOGE is not cutting enough. In this poll, true independents are independents who say they do not lean toward one party or the other.
DOGE’s backers said cutting hard and fast was the only way to make a difference before the bureaucracy could respond, pointing to rampant federal fraud and abuse as well as the soaring national debt, which is approaching $37 trillion.
Democrats blasted DOGE, saying the many of the services being were important and that DOGE leader Elon Musk and his DOGE workers had too much access to Americans’ private information.
A separate poll question asked registered voters their feelings about Musk. The poll found 39% approve of Musk’s role with DOGE compared to 55% who disapprove. POlitical party makes a significant difference in this question as well, with 71% of Republicans approving of Musk, compared to only 10% of Democrats.
“What you see is Elon Musk has a worse favorability than Donald Trump,” David Byler, chief of research at Noble Predictive Insights, which carried out the poll, told The Center Square.
“This is a consistent finding over polls, so having him as the figurehead is probably not helping,” Byler added.
Musk is reportedly pulling away from his heavy involvement with DOGE to focus on his private companies, including Tesla.
The Center Square’s Voter’s Voice poll, conducted with Noble Predictive Insights from April 15-18, queried 2,527 registered voters. Of those respondents, 1,089 were Republicans, 1,187 were Democrats, and 251 were “True Independents,” which are independents who do not lean to one party or the other. The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll is one of only six national tracking polls in the United States. It was scheduled to coincide with Trump’s 100th day in office, which is Tuesday, April 29.
The survey has a +/- 2.0% margin of error.
