Trump Cabinet Latest Update: Voters Believe Choices Will Change Washington, Poll Shows

During his successful bid for the White House, President-elect Donald Trump famously promised to “drain the swamp” he claimed Washington, D.C. had become. And as Trump continued this week to flesh out his cabinet, a poll published Wednesday found a majority of voters said they believed the billionaire’s appointments would bring significant change to the nation’s capital and its inner workings.

A Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted last week found 53 percent of voters said they thought Trump’s cabinet choices so far were set up to “make major changes to government” compared to 23 percent who believed they wouldn’t. The remaining 24 percent either weren’t sure or had no opinion.

The majority ticked up even higher, to 55 percent, when registered voters were asked if they thought, generally, that Trump would appoint candidates to the very top positions to effect change. That majority included 81 percent of people who voted for Trump and 76 percent of Republicans, while 50 percent of independent voters and 39 percent of Democrats also believed Trump was on track to fulfill one of the key tenets of his campaign.

Part of that campaign promise included bucking political norms and avoiding picks from the “D.C. elite,” which typically includes career politicians with longstanding ties to government insiders. The poll found 51 percent of voters said they thought Trump wouldn’t tap that group for his cabinet.

The poll also found that voters said they thought Trump’s picks for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.); secretary of education, Betsy DeVos; and secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), would all make a difference. The choice for secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao, was viewed as the least likely to bring about significant change.

The results of a future poll could, however, reflect much less confidence in Trump’s selections as he prepared to name a secretary of state either this week or next. Candidates like former United Nations ambassador John R. Bolton, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former CIA director and Gen. David H. Petraeus, and ex-Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney were reportedly in the running for the country’s top diplomatic post, but each of them could be lumped in with the so-called D.C. elite.