Voters Frustrated With Elon Musk’s Doge Cuts, New Poll Finds

Over half of voters believe Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency are hurting the country, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds.

Fifty-four percent of voters believe DOGE, which the Trump administration has charged with slashing government spending, is harming the country. In comparison, 40 percent say Musk’s office is helping, according to the Quinnipiac poll. And 60 percent of voters disapprove of how Musk and DOGE deal with the federal workforce, while 36 percent approve.

The poll, released Thursday, illustrates an unease among Americans as DOGE rips through the government and leaves voters grappling with real-world consequences, including hundreds of thousands of federal employees facing potential job cuts and diminished or shuttered public services at national parks.

Voters are largely split among party lines, the poll finds. Eighty-two percent of Republicans believe Musk and DOGE are improving the state of the country while 94 percent of Democrats say they’ve made the country worse. Republicans are modestly split on Musk and DOGE’s handling of the federal workforce; 77 percent approve while 16 percent disapprove. Among Democrats, 96 percent admonish the department’s work to hollow out the workforce, while two percent approve.

The findings come as voters flock to town halls across the country to voice their frustrations over massive cuts to probationary workers and an even larger wave of terminations expected in the coming weeks. The head of House Republicans’ campaign arm had instructed his party’s lawmakers to stop holding in-person town halls earlier this month amid the backlash, although President Donald Trump has dismissed the dissent as the work of “paid troublemakers.”

Democrats are hoping to capitalize on this souring mood to reverse political tides, and have used Musk and DOGE as an early foil in the first Trump administration.

Voters are also channeling their dissatisfaction with Trump, the Quinnipiac poll finds. About 55 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the federal workforce while 40 percent approve. These findings are also split among party lines; 82 percent of Republicans like Trump’s treatment of the federal workforce while 13 percent don’t, and 94 percent of Democrats disapprove while two percent approve.

The poll was conducted by Quinnipiac University. The survey was conducted from March 6 to March 10 with live interviewers who called landlines and cell phones among a random sample of 1,198 self-identified registered voters across the country. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.