Dem
47
GOP
53
It is well known now that a critical part of Donald Trump's support in 2024 was from marginal voters who are not actually Republicans but who liked his macho style and his promise to beat grocery prices into submission with his bare hands. They are belatedly discovering that this is not happening. G. Elliott Morris has taken a look at which Trump voters are defecting the most. It is mostly young, nonwhite, lower-income voters, who have no business voting for Republicans at all since the GOP has nothing to offer them. At least Trump offers young, white lower-income voters something, namely barely disguised racism. Here is a statistical breakdown of which 2024-Trump voters are jumping ship:
From the graphic above, it is clearly Black, Latino, and AAPI voters, age 18-44 voters, and under $50K voters who feel deceived and now disapprove of Trump. Will they vote for the Democrats in the midterms? That is not a given since they are marginal voters to start with.
The Democrats will have to pound on affordability and explain how they will pull it off. The reality, of course, is that they can't. Even with complete control of Congress, anything they do to lower costs will probably be vetoed by Trump, leading to a stalemate. Then the Democrats will get some of the blame in 2028 for not getting anything done. A pitch like: "Vote for us now so that if we capture the White House in 2028 we might be able to build more houses to lower housing costs and provide more health care subsidies" is probably pretty abstract and distant for most voters.
Some of this makes economic sense. Younger voters are feeling the poor job market more strongly than older voters with secure jobs. Poorer voters are feeling Trump's tariffs more strongly than people not living paycheck to paycheck. But for all voters, being lied to about prices dropping on Day 1 surely plays a role here. (V)