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There’s a new CBS News/YouGov poll out on Americans’ post-election attitudes, and, perhaps surprisingly, it paints a rather optimistic outlook as the nation prepares to transition from the Biden administration to the (second) Trump administration. 

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President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration starts off with mostly good will from the public: a majority of Americans overall are either happy or at least satisfied that he won and are either excited or optimistic about what he’ll do as president. 

Trump’s handling of his presidential transition gets approval from most Americans overall and brings near-universal approval from his voters, along with a net-positive response about his selections for Cabinet posts, in particular, Sen. Marco Rubio, who is Trump’s pick to be secretary of state. 

After inflation and the economy so dominated the election, Americans are more inclined to think his administration will bring down prices for food and groceries rather than raise them, and his voters overwhelmingly say that. Going into the election, his backers expected that, too.

The survey, conducted between November 19 and November 22, included 2,232 adults and includes a margin of error of 2.3 points. 

Here are some of the key takeaways:

In the immediate afterglow of his resounding win, President-elect Donald Trump would seem to have the wind at his back in terms of approval, with 59 percent of those surveyed approving of his handling of the transition thus far and 41 percent disapproving. 

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President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration starts off with mostly good will from the public. In the latest CBS News polling, a majority of Americans overall are either happy or at least satisfied that he won and are either excited or optimistic about what he’ll do as president.

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Additionally, his Cabinet picks thus far are a net positive:

Trump’s current selections for agency heads & cabinet picks get rated overwhelmingly as good choices from Trump’s voters.

His picks are net-positive among Americans who have heard enough about them to say. (Many have not heard enough yet.) 

As noted above, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) gets high marks for his nomination as Secretary of State, with 75 percent of Trump voters considering him a good choice and 44 percent of those surveyed overall. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS Secretary gets even higher marks, with 80 percent of Trump voters giving him a thumbs up and 47 percent of those surveyed overall, although Kennedy sports a slightly higher negative (not a good choice) response than Rubio at 34 percent versus 25 percent. 

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Those surveyed were somewhat less enthusiastic about Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense (64 percent of Trump voters, 33 percent overall) and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (71 percent of Trump voters, 36 percent overall). 

Not surprisingly, Republicans are more optimistic and excited about Trump 2.0 than Democrats, revealing a fairly stark partisan divide on the outlook. 

Still, the positive expectations outweigh the negatives. And while 78 percent of Republicans surveyed indicate they are motivated to support Trump, only 44 percent of Democrats surveyed express motivation to oppose him. As CBS notes, “there seems to be a sense of exhaustion.”

One hopes that if Trump is permitted to implement the changes he’s promised, that “exhaustion” will give way to pleasant — if grudging — surprise.