- 51% of Americans think the president is currently exercising too much power, and 52% of Utahns agree.
- About one-quarter of Americans and Utahns think that Congress is not exercising enough power.
- 34% of Americans and 36% of Utahns think the U.S. Supreme Court is exercising just the right amount of power.
A majority of U.S. voters think the American presidency is exercising too much power, while fewer than 1 in 10 think the president isn’t wielding enough, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.
A slight majority of Utah voters agree President Donald Trump is exercising too much power, despite the president garnering positive job approval ratings in the state.
Voters are split on whether the other branches of government are exerting too much, too little or just the right amount of power in response to the Trump administration’s attempt to expand executive authority.
The survey was conducted just after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in what has been called “the biggest separation-of-powers controversy” in 70 years as the court decides on whether Congress has given, or can give, the president authority over broad tariffs.
President Trump has pursued policies in trade, immigration and military mobilization that have pushed presidential authority into new territory, said Troy Smith, the director of Utah Valley University’s Constitutional Federalism Initiative.
Like administrations before his, Trump has embraced a “unitary executive theory” of governance, acting under the assumption that whereas Congress is limited to specific functions by the Constitution, the president is empowered to exercise all executive authority by himself.
“Trump is pushing that theory beyond what any other presidents have tried to do,” Smith told the Deseret News. “With any new constitutional paradigm, it takes time to work its way out. How is Congress going to respond to this? How are the courts going to respond to this?”
A plurality of Americans want Congress and the courts to continue exercising their authority in the face of Trump’s initiatives, or to exercise more power, the poll found. But a third of Americans think these institutions, like the president, are also overstepping their bounds.
How do Utahns feel about federal power?
Utahns are closely aligned with the rest of the country in their feelings toward each of the branches of government. However, Utah Republicans tend to be more skeptical of government authority than their fellow Republicans.
A slight majority of voters nationally (51%), and in Utah (52%), said they think “the president is currently exercising too much power.” Another 31% of Utahns said the president is exercising “just the right amount of power,” 9% said the president is exercising “not enough power” and 9% don’t know.
Responses in Utah were more evenly split for Congress: 37% of voters said it is exerting too much power, 23% said it is the right amount, 22% said it is not enough and 18% weren’t sure. A greater share of respondents said Congress should do more, compared to the other branches.
The partisan impact was felt most heavily for the president: 3 in 10 Utah Republicans say the president is exercising too much power, while 5 in 10 say he’s using just the right amount.
Slightly more than 8 in 10 Utah Democrats say the president is exercising too much power, about the same as Democrats nationally.
Utah Republicans (29%) were more likely to say the president is exercising too much power than Republicans nationally (21%).
At the national level, 35% of Republicans and Democrats said Congress is exercising too much power. Responses also appeared less partisan, or more mixed, for the Supreme Court, which has approved aspects of Trump’s agenda while shutting down others.
More than any other branch, American voters felt the Supreme Court is exercising the right amount of power, with a plurality of 34% indicating this position, while 31% say the court is wielding too much power, 19% say not enough and 15% say they don’t know.
Morning Consult administered the poll nationally among 1,745 registered voters from Nov. 7 to 12 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The Utah survey was conducted among 607 voters from Nov. 8 to 12 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The state of America’s separation of powers
Since starting his second term, Trump has launched an unprecedented mass deportation campaign by expanding the definition of invasion, initiated a historic tariff regime by classifying trade deficits as an emergency, and deployed the National Guard by citing public riots.
For decades, the executive branch has amassed more power to itself, according to Smith. At times, this takes on a more dramatic character, like when tension between the courts and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reforms created over time a new “constitutional paradigm.”
“Trump is pushing norms and edges that have been in place for a long time,” Smith said. “And that has a lot of people concerned. But that is a legitimate constitutional paradigm — it is being tested though.”
While some have pointed to GOP lawmakers’ hesitancy to push back against Trump on tariffs, Smith said Congress has acted as a check on the presidency, forcing a number of nominations to be withdrawn, and providing more detailed instructions to federal agencies after the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine.
More resistance is likely to come from Republicans, Smith said. Lawmakers often defer to their party’s standard-bearer during the first year of a president’s term, but there are signs this is starting to break as libertarian-leaning Congress members pushed for the release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump’s approach to the presidency has also put more pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court, which is having to interpret what the Constitution says about the president’s arguments about executive authority, just as they had to do in the 1930s.
“We’re at another time period where we are reconsidering a lot of those questions,” Smith said. “And sometimes they get it wrong. ... Oftentimes the decision made in the political moment isn’t necessarily the one that’s going to last, in the sense of the one that’s consistent with our constitutional system of government.”