Donald Trump’s advisers have been jolted by internal polling that showed his ICE crackdown is turning off voters as Minnesota’s violent immigration raids and protests dominate the airwaves.
The 79-year-old president and his inner circle pored over private Republican polling at the end of December that showed support for his deportation agenda sliding even before an ICE agent fatally shot mom Renee Nicole Good, 37, in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, according to Axios.
In that private polling, 60 percent of independents and 58 percent of undecided voters said the president was “too focused” on deporting undocumented immigrants, while a third of respondents thought he was targeting mainly law-abiding people rather than criminals, the outlet reported.
Those numbers have set off an alarm in Trump’s inner circle. Some aides are now talking about “recalibrating” ICE tactics, Axios said, fearing a collapse among moderate, independent, and minority voters who helped deliver Trump’s 2024 victory and will decide whether Republicans keep their tiny House majority in November’s midterms.
One senior adviser was quoted as saying of Trump, “He wants deportations. He wants mass deportations. What he doesn’t want is what people are seeing. He doesn’t like the way it looks. It looks bad, so he’s expressed some discomfort at that.”
Public surveys suggest the damage may already have been done. A CNN poll this week found 51 percent of Americans saying ICE operations are making U.S. cities less safe, compared to 31 percent who think they are making them safer.
A separate YouGov survey conducted after Good’s killing found that a majority want sweeping new limits on the agency and that nearly half of respondents now favor abolishing ICE outright.
And an AP-NORC poll conducted Jan. 8–11, also in the days after Good’s killing, showed approval of Trump’s handling of immigration down to 38 percent, from 49 percent in March 2025.
The political backlash has been fueled by scenes from Minnesota, where Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, 54, has deployed around 3,000 federal agents for what officials billed as the biggest immigration enforcement surge in history.
Good, a Minneapolis writer and mother, was shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, 43, as she attempted to drive away from a Jan. 7 immigration protest. A Venezuelan man was wounded by a federal agent in a separate north Minneapolis confrontation a week later, prompting nightly protests.
Even some of Trump’s loudest allies are recoiling. Podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump in the 2024 election, complained about “militarized groups of people roaming the streets, just showing up with masks on, snatching people up,” and asked, “Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
Yet the private hand-wringing inside Trump’s circle is in stark contrast to the president’s public posture. On Thursday, Trump threatened on Truth Social to “institute the INSURRECTION ACT” in Minnesota if “corrupt politicians” did not stop what he called “agitators and insurrectionists” attacking ICE “patriots,” effectively dangling martial law over a blue state.
And despite the ugly polling, the White House’s response so far has been to escalate, sending still more federal agents into Minneapolis.
Trump’s administration has tried to frame the chaos as confined to Democratic-run “sanctuary” jurisdictions, arguing that Americans are “only seeing” disruptive raids where local officials refuse to work with ICE.
Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller remain the key architects of the crackdown, and some Trump allies see Noem positioning herself for a 2028 presidential run while standing as an immigration hardliner, Axios reported.
At least for now, Trump’s team insists the president’s hard line is still a political asset. “President Trump continues to be viewed as a strong leader who keeps the American people safe,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios, adding that his immigration and border agenda “remains among his best polling issues with voters.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast that Trump had campaigned on and won an election “based on his promise to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in history,” adding that he is ”keeping his promise and the American people are appreciative.“
