Dem
51
Ties
3
GOP
46
We have mentioned The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell many times. She is definitely conservative, but also definitely not MAGA, which leaves her as an outspoken member of the Trump resistance. Her specific role at The Bulwark is to run focus groups, with the result that she has her finger on the pulse of the voting public more than most other people in the media do.
In her recent focus-group work, she's been asking participants how they feel about Trump. Among those who have lost their enthusiasm for him, she's tried to figure out why. Yesterday, she published a piece headlined "The Three Issues Souring Trump Voters on Trump." Here is her list:
The first [issue] is the economy. In his first term, Trump voters were willing to put up with a lot of Trump-driven insanity because, until COVID, the economy did well. The inflation of the Biden years--and the Biden administration's inability to effectively talk to voters about it--was a major reason Trump was re-elected. But voters aren't feeling as flush now as they were during the halcyon days of 2017-19...
The second, related issue is the war in Iran. Losing wars has always been unpopular, especially when they make people feel even worse off economically than they already were. A lot of swing voters were in the "America First" and "No More Wars" camp during and after the 2024 election...
[Third, and] the real surprise to me was how much Trump's personal corruption is an issue for voters in a way it never was during Trump 1.0. Some of this is related to the Jeffrey Epstein stuff. But I think that's only part of the story. If everyone is doing well, and Trump's doing a little extra well, then voters could excuse that. But when they feel squeezed by high gas prices caused by Trump's war, stubborn inflation, and possible interest rate hikes that might exacerbate the housing crisis, Trump's flagrant corruption and obsession with his ballroom and arch are harder to overlook.
This certainly aligns with our gut feel about things, and so we don't have too much to add. That said, it is interesting to think that the corruption can be hand-waved away when the economy is doing OK, but that it becomes extremely bothersome once the economy heads downhill.
And that brings us to a second piece we'd like to mention. Ron Filipkowski, at MeidasPlus, compiled a rundown of the 75 most corrupt things Trump has done just this year. Just about everything on the list would have been enough to trigger impeachment, and probably conviction, 40 years ago. If we tried to summarize the whole thing, it would be kind of boring. So, what we thought we would do is run down the dozen most corrupt things from the list, from least to most corrupt, in our view:
Remember, this is just stuff from 2026. Also remember there are 63 items on the list that we did not mention. In any event, there is so much corrupt stuff coming out of the White House, it's easy to forget the specifics, because it all blends together into a toxic stew of grift. This list is a refresher, and a reminder of why some voters might suddenly be willing to hold Trump's corrupt behavior against him and his party. (Z)