One year into President Donald Trump’s second term, large majorities of Indian Americans (71%) disapprove of his job performance, according to a new Carnegie survey of the over 5.2 million strong community.
The largely negative assessment of Trump’s second term among people of Indian origin living in the United States includes his handling of the domestic economy, international economic policy, and immigration.
Evaluations of Trump’s management of U.S.-India relations are also negative with 55% disapproving and only 20% expressing approval, though many respondents report having no opinion, underscoring the limited salience of foreign policy for electoral decision making, the survey suggests.
The new president’s actions have thrown U.S.-India relations into crisis, roiling what was once hailed as the “defining partnership of the twenty-first century,” suggests the survey.
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The 2026 Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS) in partnership with the research firm YouGov examines shifting vote preferences, growing political ambivalence, and rising concerns about discrimination amid U.S. policy changes and geopolitical uncertainty.
Indian Americans remain disproportionately Democratic, but their attachment to the party has weakened, according to the survey titled ‘Indian Americans in a Time of Turbulence: 2026 Survey.’
Indian Americans continue to identify with the Democratic Party by wide margins (46%), yet the share of Democrats has declined since 2020, while Republican identification (19%) has increased modestly over that period, it says.
Ideologically, the community clusters most heavily at the center of the ideological spectrum, with moderates (32%) representing the single largest group.
But widespread disapproval of Trump’s policies has not neatly translated to clear gains for Democrats, the survey suggests. While a clear majority of Indian Americans supported the Democratic presidential ticket in 2024, Trump made notable gains compared to 2020, particularly among young men.
In 2026, support for Trump has softened, but Democratic support has not rebounded commensurately, signaling rising dissatisfaction with both major parties, according to the survey.
Indian Americans also report widespread perceptions of bias, frequent encounters with online racism, and marked levels of personal harassment or discrimination. However, since 2020, there has been no significant change in the share of respondents reporting direct, personal experience with discrimination.
Discrimination is reshaping behavior but not prompting widespread exit from the United States. While many respondents report preemptively changing how they live, speak, or participate in public life to avoid harassment, most do not plan to leave the country, and a majority still recommend the United States for employment.
Reactions to symbolic political events reveal ideological polarization more than identity-based attachment, the survey suggests.
Indian Americans express substantial enthusiasm for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, driven primarily by ideological concerns rather than shared ethnicity or religion.
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Conversely, public remarks by Vice President JD Vance regarding religion and marriage elicited strong negative reactions linked to concerns about religious inclusion, representation, and belonging.
On the domestic front, commentators have observed a notable rise in online hate speech and discrimination against Indian Americans. And yet, the 2024 presidential election saw a meaningful increase in the diaspora’s support for Donald Trump, weakening—though not overturning—the community’s long-standing embrace of the Democratic Party.
Taken together, these developments sharpen the challenge of understanding how Indian Americans are navigating electoral politics, policy change, and debates over identity and belonging in the United States, at a moment of unusual political flux, suggests the survey.
The nationally representative online survey of 1,000 Indian American adults, conducted between Nov. 25, 2025, and Jan. 6, 2026 has an overall margin of error of ±3.6 percent.
The survey builds on earlier IAAS waves conducted in 2020 and 2024 and provides a systematic portrait of Indian Americans’ partisan identities, vote preferences, policy priorities, evaluations of political leaders, and experiences with discrimination.