President Donald Trump’s latest authoritarian act of deploying the military to police protesters in Los Angeles is deeply unpopular, according to new polling, and this gives Democrats a new and potent line of attack against the dictator-wannabe-in-chief.
New data from YouGov finds that pluralities of Americans disapprove of Trump’s decision to both call in the National Guard (45% disapprove) and the Marines (47% disapprove) to quell what had been otherwise peaceful demonstrations in Los Angeles.
Trump first called in the National Guard over the weekend and the Marines on Monday night to police and arrest protesters demonstrating against the immigration raids Trump has ordered. In the raids, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have stormed workplaces, schools, and courthouses to try to meet Trump’s extreme deportation goals.
YouGov not only finds that Trump’s handling of deportations is largely unpopular—50% disapprove and only 39% approve—but the polling firm also finds that Americans aren’t buying his justification for military intervention. While he has tried to paint the protests against his immigration agenda as violent, a plurality of Americans (38%) think the protests are mostly peaceful.
YouGov also released a poll on Tuesday that it conducted in conjunction with The Economist, which finds that a plurality of U.S. adult citizens (47%) think Trump’s immigration approach is “too harsh.” A plurality (47%) also thinks ICE agents should not be allowed to be masked when carrying out their raids.
What’s more, the poll finds that 61% think the Trump administration should not be deporting undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for many years and have not committed crimes. Fifty-four percent say undocumented immigrants who have U.S. citizen children should not be deported. And 56% say Trump should not be allowed to deport people to foreign prisons, like he’s been doing for months.
All of this data gives Democrats a clear line of attack against Trump in the 2026 midterm elections. Americans largely think Trump is going beyond what voters tasked him with doing.
Democrats are already making that clear in their public statements, accusing Trump of illegally sending in the military against citizens in order to inflame tensions and create violence that might distract from his legislative agenda. After all, Trump’s tax bill, which that recently passed the House, would rip Medicaid and food stamps away from poor Americans, all to partly pay for tax cuts that would overwhelmingly benefit the rich.
“Trump is deliberately causing chaos in LA to distract you from the fact that he’s trying to rip healthcare away from almost 14 million Americans,” Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona wrote in a post on X. “Same old playbook. Chaos as a cover for cruelty.”
“You don’t get ICE to follow the law by breaking it yourself. The violence needs to stop, but sending in Marines against civilians is reckless escalation,” Rep. Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote in a post on X. “The last time Marines were deployed in an American city, 63 people had died, thousands were injured, and the streets were on fire—and the governor requested them. Trump has never respected what Marines do overseas, but always wanted to use them to enforce his political agenda here at home.”