Poll finds 80% of voters support the consumer watchdog CFPB

It's common in some circles to dismiss the efforts of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the causes it champions, including tighter regulation of overdraft fees, credit card late fees, payment apps and privacy but a new poll suggests that attitude may not hold water.

As Russell Vought prepares for his first-ever congressional testimony as acting director at the CFPB, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) today released a new poll demonstrating that, across the political spectrum, likely midterm voters approve of the CFPB, with four in five expressing support for it.

Conversely, the poll found, voters oppose President Trump’s and Congress’ attempts to eliminate the consumer watchdog agency.

Voters also support restoring CFPB protections – for overdraft fees, credit card late fees, privacy, and payment apps – that were cancelled during the current Trump Administration. A bipartisan polling team from Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting conducted the survey. 

"Overwhelming margins"

“Americans of all political stripes, by overwhelming margins, support this consumer watchdog. The Administration’s and Congress’s actions to shutter the agency fly in the face of what voters want,” said Mike Calhoun, president at the Center for Responsible Lending.

“The Consumer Bureau’s mission – making sure financial firms treat people fairly – is especially important as so many people struggle to afford housing and other essentials. Congress should pass the Protecting American Consumers Act to automatically and fully fund the CFPB’s work,” he said in a news release.

“There is a massive disconnect between Congressional Republicans’ push to loosen Wall Street regulations, and what midterm voters actually want,” said Tom Feltner, associate director of consumer policy at Americans for Financial Reform. “Polling consistently shows that Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike want a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that stands up to Wall Street abuses in order to protect families’ finances, rein in junk fees, and guard peoples’ privacy.”

Bipartisan support for CFPB's mission

Among other findings, the poll found:

Over nine in ten voters (92%) believe it is important to regulate financial services to make sure they are fair for consumers.

• After hearing a short description of the CFPB and its mission, four in five voters (80%) express support for the CFPB, including 77% of Republicans and 69% of independents.
• There is remarkably wide support across parties and among independents for a number of CFPB protections that were canceled or overturned by the Trump administration or Congress:
  • Over four in five voters support capping credit card late fees at $8 and overdraft fees at $5 (82% each), including over three quarters of Republican voters for each policy.
  • Over four in five voters support regulating payment apps (such as Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App) to stop bad practices that harm people (81%), including 80% of Republicans.
  • Voters are near-unanimous in their support of stopping financial companies from selling consumers’ personal data (90%) with a high degree of consistency across party lines.

What is Trump thinking?

Recent off-year and special elections have generally seen Democratic candidates outperform their 2024 baseline, fueling optimism about the party's prospects in the 2026 midterms, according to the Brookings Institute.

So why is the Trump administration so determined to cut programs that voters deem essential? One suggestion comes from the Brennan Center for Justice, which has termed Trump's efforts "another example of the donor class holding sway over Washington."

To hear the Trump White House tell it, the CFPB is a “woke, weaponized” agency that takes money from financial institutions to “support radical advocacy groups.” This position is drawn directly from the conservative policy plan Project 2025, which was crafted in part by Vought, who now runs the agency on an "acting" basis.

But ideology aside, the drive to bury the CFPB also aligns with the interests of the mega-donors who have financed Trump's campaigns and those of many of his MAGA supporters. Elon Musk is the most prominent example but in its article, the Brennan Center counts downs the billionaire financiers whose business interests coincide with their professed ideology concerns.

They suggest, though not in so many words, that Trump is repaying his most generous supporters by attempting to roll back the financial protections that are generally regarded as essential to maintaining a healthy middle class.

"The Trump-Vance ticket ran on breaking with the economic orthodoxy espoused by longtime GOP megadonors. But for now, it appears to be the orthodoxy that is winning out," say Eric Petry and Ian Vendewalker, the authors of the Brennan Center article.