President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Jan. 7, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)2025-01-16T12:01:19Z WASHINGTON (AP) Worries about everyday expenses helped return President-elect Donald Trump to the White House. But with his second term quickly approaching, many U.S. adults are skeptical about his ability to bring down costs. Only about 2 in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident that Trump will be able to make progress on lowering the cost of groceries, housing or health care this year, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, while about 2 in 10 are moderately confident. Faith in Trumps ability to create jobs is a little higher about 3 in 10 are extremely or very confident the Republican will make progress on this in 2025 but the poll indicates that despite his sweeping promises about lowering prices, a substantial chunk of his own supporters dont have high confidence in his ability to quickly alleviate the economic pressures that continue to frustrate many households. Those tempered expectations havent dampened Republicans hopes for Trumps second presidential term, though. And Democrats pessimism about his return to office is more muted than it was when he exited the White House in 2020. About 8 in 10 Republicans say Trump will be a great or good president in his second term, according to the poll. And while Democrats assessments are much more negative about 8 in 10 say he will be a poor or terrible president they are less likely to say hell be a terrible president in his second term than they were at the end of his first. Only about 3 in 10 are highly confident in Trumps handling of the economy Much of the 2024 presidential campaign revolved around prices whether President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was to blame for inflation and whether Trump could fix it. AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of voters and nonvoters that aims to tell the story behind election results, showed that about 4 in 10 voters in the November election identified the economy and jobs as the most important issue facing the country and that about 6 in 10 of those voters cast their ballot for Trump. As Trump takes office, though, the poll shows that many Americans dont anticipate that he will be able to immediately bring costs down. That includes some of his own supporters. Less than half of Republicans are at least very confident that Trump will make progress on lowering food costs, housing costs or health care costs, although about 6 in 10 are at least very confident in his ability to create jobs. Confidence in Trumps ability to handle the broader economic situation is also fairly low. Only about one-third of Americans are extremely or very confident in his ability to handle the economy and jobs. Nearly 2 in 10 are moderately confident, and about half are slightly confident or not at all confident. Here, Republicans have more faith in Trumps abilities about 7 in 10 are at least very confident in his ability to handle the economy in general.But there are other policy areas where expectations for Trump arent high across the board. Similar to the economy and jobs, about one-third of Americans are at least very confident in Trumps ability to handle immigration and national security, while about 2 in 10 are moderately confident and about half are slightly or not at all confident. Health care is a particularly weak spot for TrumpAmericans are especially skeptical of Trumps ability to bring down health care costs or handle the issue of health care at all, the poll found. Only about 2 in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident in his ability to tackle health care issues, and 16% are confident in his ability to make progress on lowering health care costs. During the presidential campaign, Trump said he would look at alternatives to the Affordable Care Act. He has not offered a concrete plan of what his changes to the health care law would be, but he spent a lot of energy during his first term on efforts to dismantle it that were ultimately unsuccessful.Only about half of Republicans are extremely or very confident in Trumps ability to handle health care, and about one-third are at least very confident hell make progress on lowering the cost of heath care. About half of Republicans expect a great second term from TrumpTrumps favorability rating has remained steady through four indictments, a criminal conviction and two attempted assassinations, and the new survey shows that Americans expectations for his second term match their assessment of his first four years in office. Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults expect Trump will be a terrible or poor president in his second term, essentially unchanged from when he left the White House in 2021. But Republicans are expecting even bigger things from Trump this time, while Democrats fears appear to be a little more muted. About half of Republicans say they think Trump will be a great president in his second term, while about 4 in 10 Republicans described him as a great president at the end of his first term. Democrats still overwhelmingly expect that Trump will be a terrible president, but that concern has lessened. About 6 in 10 Democrats think Trump will be a terrible president in his second term, down from three-quarters who said he was a terrible president at the end of his first term. ___The AP-NORC poll of 1,147 adults was conducted Jan. 9-13, using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. LINLEY SANDERS Sanders is a polls and surveys reporter for The Associated Press. She develops and writes about polls conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, and works on AP VoteCast. twitter AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX Thomson-DeVeaux is the APs editor for polling and surveys. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site