Poll Shows 7 in 10 Don’t Want Trump to Run for Third Term

A new poll shows that most Americans believe President Donald Trump will attempt to run for a third presidential term when his current one expires, though the vast majority don’t want him to, and even more recognize it would be illegal for him to do so.

Trump has frequently flirted with the idea of running for president again, even though the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution only allows individuals to serve two terms in office.

In 2019, for example, he claimed he was owed an extra term in office due to the Congressional election investigation supposedly interfering with his ability to be president. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump also floated the idea of running again to an audience of his supporters, comparing himself to Franklin Roosevelt, who won four terms before the two-term limit was codified.

“You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” Trump asked his supporters last year.

More recently, during an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” program last month, Trump told host Kristen Welker he was serious about the idea.

“I’m not joking,” he said.

Trump added:

A lot of people want me to do it. But we have — my thinking is, we have a long way to go. I’m focused on the current.

“There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said, noting one scenario involving Vice President J.D. Vance running with Trump as his vice presidential candidate in 2028, then resigning upon being inaugurated as president so Trump could be commander in chief again. Although the 22nd Amendment doesn’t allow a president to be elected more than twice, it does allow a president to serve a total of 10 years in office if they serve for part of someone else’s term.

Trump’s assertion that people “want [him] to do it” is exaggerated, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll published on Wednesday. While many of his supporters would indeed back his running for president again, the vast majority of voters don’t want to see another Trump candidacy.

According to the poll’s findings, more than one in two voters (52 percent) believe Trump will try to run for president again. A quarter of voters (25 percent) believe he won’t try to run, while 22 percent are unsure.

As for whether he should run for another presidential term, a whopping 70 percent said he should not, with only 17 percent saying he should and another 13 percent saying they’re unsure.

A higher rate of respondents recognized that the Constitution doesn’t allow him to run again, with 75 percent correctly noting that fact and only 8 percent believing the document would allow him to seek the presidency one more time.

Political commentators have condemned Trump’s discussion of pursuing a third term, saying that he is using the “bully pulpit” of the presidency to advance anti-democratic ideas.

“The fact that Mr. Trump has inserted the idea into the national conversation illustrates the uncertainty about the future of America’s constitutional system, nearly 250 years after the country gained independence,” wrote Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times. “More than at any time in generations, a president’s commitment to limits on power and the rule of law is under question and his critics fear that the country is on a dark path.”

Matt Ford, staff writer for The New Republic, wrote in a recent column that Trump’s third term talk should be taken seriously, especially given the Supreme Court’s leniency with him in recent years.

It’s “possible that all of this is just a power play by Trump to prevent the GOP from openly starting to think about his successor, and that he doesn’t truly intend to seek or have a third term as president,” Ford wrote. But still, he contended, “thanks to the Supreme Court, even the most well-enshrined constitutional principles are no longer sacrosanct in the Trumpian age.”