Trump’s Newest Voters Are Abandoning Ship

What a difference a year makes. Today, that widely accepted consensus about the 2024 election seems absurd. Trump hadn’t reshaped the electorate at all—he had simply won another toss-up election. Yes, he narrowly won the popular vote this time, but by a margin—in both popular and Electoral College terms—that was not historically impressive. And now, those new voters he brought in have already abandoned him. A Friday CNN poll found that he is 29 points underwater with independents and 30 points down with both Latinos and young voters. Trump’s new coalition is already in tatters—and there is no sign that these voters will be coming back to the president or his party anytime soon.

There was, of course, another explanation for Trump’s shocking return to power, and it had little to do with him or his movement. Joe Biden’s presidency was quickly deflated by stubbornly high inflation. He and his party bore little responsibility for the problem, which largely stemmed from post-pandemic supply shocks, but to the public that hardly mattered. And there was the problem of Biden’s advanced age, which his team tried to deal with by hiding him from the public. By the time he bowed to pressure and ended his reelection campaign, it was too late: With no time for a competitive primary, the only plausible Democratic candidate was Kamala Harris, his vice president, who of course was synonymous with an administration many blamed for high prices.

Trump’s success with low-propensity voters played a decisive role in his victory, but those are the precise voters who are currently fleeing the sinking ship. Fifty-eight percent of the electorate already sees his second term as a failure. He receives failing marks from a majority of voters in every policy area, including the two—the economy and immigration—that played the most decisive role in his 2024 victory. A clear majority of voters see his presidency as one that has failed in its core objectives and that has overstretched its power. It’s a message that largely aligns with the one many Democrats, like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have been pushing: that Trump’s fascistic immigration policies are coming at the expense of their overall well-being.