How Trump's base could break

President Donald Trump has held his coalition together throughout much of the first year of his second term in office like few other figures could — albeit at times with bailing twine and a red MAGA cap — but cracks are starting to show, according to the latest results from The POLITICO Poll.

And it’s clear whoever tries to pick up the MAGA mantle ahead of 2028 has some serious work to do to keep the coalition together.

For starters, a significant portion of 2024 Trump voters — more than a third — do not consider themselves to be MAGA Republicans. And not only are they less loyal to Trump than self-identified MAGA Republicans, the poll suggests some of them have already begun to turn on him: Non-MAGA Trump voters are much more likely to blame Trump for the state of the economy, say he has too much power and be pessimistic about the future.

The results underscore just how sui generis the cohort that reelected Trump was — and foreshadow the GOP’s coming challenges.

More than half of Trump’s voters last year — 55 percent — describe themselves as MAGA, but a critical 38 percent do not, according to the survey, which comprised 2,098 U.S. adults online and was conducted Nov. 14-17, with a margin of sampling error at plus-or-minus 2 percentage points.

And it’s here where the fissures start to emerge: Among those self-described MAGA voters, 47 percent say the current economy still belongs fully to Biden, compared to just 26 percent of non-MAGA Trump 2024 voters.

This divide becomes even starker on areas Republicans typically don’t own, like health care, where the White House is struggling to forge a path to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies: 85 percent of MAGA Trump voters trust Republicans more to bring down health care costs, whereas just 55 percent of non-MAGA do — with 19 percent instead trusting Democrats and 27 percent saying they don’t know.

When it comes to trusting a given party on the economy, 88 percent of those MAGA voters back Republicans generally; but only 63 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters support Republicans, with 28 percent saying neither party or don’t know.

On affordability, the issue that Trump has said delivered him the election, and the one his own White House deputy chief of staff James Blair has said he will be “very focused on,” non-MAGA Republicans are more concerned by the cost of living than their MAGA counterparts: 59 percent to 48 percent.

Among the other findings centering on the economy:

• The non-MAGA cohort is less likely to feel Trump has taken the chance he had to change things in the economy: 65 percent of MAGA compared with 46 percent of non-MAGA.

• MAGA Republicans feel their personal financial situation has improved over the past five years (52 percent to 24 percent), whereas non-MAGA GOPers are virtually tied (37 percent to 36 percent).

• In a fascinating divide, 73 percent of MAGA Republicans expect their personal financial situation to improve over the next 5 years, compared with 57 percent of non-MAGA Republicans. 

• Similarly, MAGA feels better off than the average American (49 percent to 17 percent), whereas non-MAGA is torn (30 percent to 29 percent). 

What does this all mean ahead of the fast-approaching midterms? Already, we have evidence from the off-year elections that the 2024 Trump coalition isn’t holding, with Latino and young male voters shifting back to Democrats. On generic ballot vote intention, 92 percent of MAGA Republicans backed the Republican candidate, while 62 percent of non-MAGA did.
There’s something in the MAGA Republican voter mentality — a kind of economic optimism — that is durable even amid the current turmoil. Trump’s definition of reality permeates their own.

And the GOP has less than four years to turn Trump voters into reliable Republican voters.

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