World Cup viewership stayed bipartisan despite Trump’s role: CNBC survey

President Donald Trump made the World Cup one of the most visible political stages of his second term. But the tournament’s U.S. audience remained strikingly bipartisan, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey.

Forty-nine percent of registered voters said they watched at least some of the World Cup, according to the survey. That included 51% of Democrats, 47% of Republicans and 47% of independents.

“It crosses partisanship, one of the few things in the world that seems to at the moment,” said Jay Campbell, a partner at Democratic polling firm Hart Research, which conducted the survey along with Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies.

The split was equally narrow along other political lines, the survey found. Fifty-one percent of voters who backed Kamala Harris in 2024 watched, compared with 47% of Trump voters. Voters who approved or disapproved of Trump tuned in at nearly the same rates, 47% and 50%, respectively.

The World Cup’s four-point Democratic-Republican gap was smaller than the partisan divides over voters’ favorite sports. Republicans were 13 points more likely than Democrats to choose football, while Democrats held seven-point advantages in soccer generally and in basketball.

Just 8% of voters named soccer as their favorite sport, but 17% said they watched “a lot” of the World Cup and an additional 32% said they watched “some.”

Micah Roberts, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, described the tournament as a place “where Democrats and Republicans agree.”

The survey asked about World Cup viewership and asked respondents to identify their favorite sport. The results suggest the tournament largely avoided the partisan sorting that has followed Trump into much of U.S. culture.

Since returning to office, Trump has chaired the White House task force overseeing the World Cup. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has repeatedly appeared with him, and FIFA opened offices in Trump Tower. Trump attended the World Cup draw, held at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, where Trump’s name, which he added to the center, was recently required to be removed after a court ruling.

Infantino also gave Trump 10 tickets worth $15,000 to last year’s Club World Cup final, according to Trump’s annual financial disclosure. Trump helped present the trophy and is expected to do so again Sunday at the World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

FIFA later awarded Trump its inaugural Peace Prize, drawing scrutiny from European lawmakers and an ethics complaint accusing Infantino of violating FIFA’s political neutrality rules.

Trump’s involvement also extended beyond ceremonies.

After U.S. striker Folarin Balogun received a red card, which triggered an…