Michiganders Like DOGE But Not Elon Musk, New Polling Shows

(Source: MIRS.news, Published April 1, 2025) New polling shows that a majority of Michiganders support creating a state-level Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), although 50.3 percent share very negative feelings toward Elon Musk, who's overseeing the initiative.  

Marketing Resource Group (MRG) LLC., the Lansing-based public relations firm, conducted live phone interviews with 602 likely Michigan voters. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they would support Michigan creating its own DOGE, which President Donald Trump rolled out in January.  

It is intended to review and minimize federal spending, seeking ways to scale down administrative overhead.  

Near the end of March, Bridge Michigan reported that DOGE claimed to be canceling several grants to the state's health department. Among the money reportedly to be withdrawn was $238.3 million leftover from January 2021 for COVID-19 testing and $58.8 million from federal Fiscal Year 2020 for labs to mitigate infectious diseases.  

In February, Michigan's Attorney General joined 13 other states in filing a lawsuit challenging Trump for granting Musk access to government databases to operate DOGE.  

The lawsuit – which also featured the Arizona, Minnesota and Nevada attorneys general – described Musk as unraveling agencies, accessing sensitive data and causing mass chaos and confusion. It argues that Trump violated the separation of powers by granting him such powers.  

But as for DOGE itself, 29 percent opposed – 22.1 percent strongly and 7.3 percent somewhat – the establishment of Michigan's own government efficiency department.   

"While voters are skeptical of the current federal DOGE implementation, the underlying concept of a government efficiency department resonates positively with a majority of Michiganders, particularly Republicans and Independents," said Jenell Leonard, MRG's president. "Results show voters like the idea of streamlining government, even if they disapprove of the specific federal approach."  

As for Musk himself, 55 percent of survey-takers disapproved – with 50.3 percent strongly disproving – of Musk's handling of DOGE.  

Eighty-two percent of the survey's Republican participants approved of Musk's handling of DOGE, and 96 percent of Democratic respondents disapproved of it. Meanwhile, disapproval was felt among 64 percent of independent participants.   

"The reaction to the federal DOGE initiative under Elon Musk is deeply fractured along party lines," Leonard said. "While Republicans strongly approve, the near-total disapproval among Democrats drives the overall negative numbers, indicating very little middle ground on Musk's approach."  

On Monday, POLITICO reported how, while signing an executive order, Trump informed journalists that there would be a point where his cabinet secretaries would be able to do the work of DOGE.   

"I think he's amazing, but I also think he's got a big company to run and so at some point he's going to be going back," Trump said of Musk. "He wants to. I'd keep him as long as I could keep him."  

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton) – a 2026 candidate for governor – has additionally called for Michigan's own DOGE. For example, in a February press release, he noted that in six years of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration, government spending has increased by 40 percent. 

" ... Including the decimation of a $9 billion surplus as soon as her party gained full control of the state's purse strings. Yet those roads that she promised to fix are still a mess, bridges are crumbling, and potholes are swallowing tires," Nesbitt said. "It's time to take a DOGE approach to our state government – cut the fat, slash the bureaucracy, rethink how we operate, and make Lansing work for the people it serves."