Trump's movement is collapsing as white working class bails

No single electoral bloc was as essential to President Donald Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024 as white, non-college-educated voters. As he famously declared during his first primaries, “I love the poorly educated,” who were backing him in big numbers. But now, according to the latest polls, Trump’s approval among such voters has plummeted in recent months, and for the first time he is disliked by the majority of those without whom he would not be in office.

“The swing is stark,” reports the Washington Post. “54 percent of White voters without a college degree disapproved of Trump’s performance in a CBS News poll this month, up from 32 percent in February 2025 and 45 percent in February of this year. It’s a sobering sign for Republicans heading into the midterms and working to turn out the voters who carried Trump to victory in 2024.”

According to former Trump supporters who spoke with the Post, they’re bailing on him over the floundering economy and skyrocketing cost of living. For example, the paper met with Ohio factory workers who were discussing strategies for stretching their already thin budgets. While one argued that Trump would bring costs back down, another was not so sure.

“You could be paying these prices for a while,” said 64-year-old Trump voter Annette Dombrowksi. According to Dombrowski, the Post explains, “she believed Trump when he promised during his last campaign to lower prices. She watched excitedly alongside her boyfriend last year as Trump signed one executive order after another. But now her bills for gas, groceries and other necessities have gone up.”

“I don’t even want to vote for anybody in the next election,” she said, noting that she normally votes in midterms. “I don’t care, because they’re all crap.”

White non-college educated voters still approve of Trump’s approach to immigration, though the margin has shrunk. They disapprove of his handling of the economy by 22 points, and they are negative overall.

According to Austin Keyser, a leader with an electrical workers' union, union members have been expressing regret at voting for Trump, frustrated by rising prices and the president’s focus on Iran. And as welder and three-time Trump voter Peggy Liff reminisced, before Trump’s second term, “prices were down” and “gas was low,” but now, “he’s concentrating on other things, like overseas, Iran. He says he’s doing it for us, but I don’t see where that’s happening.”

Trump’s tumbling approval with working-class voters comes at a time when consumer sentiment has hit all-time lows and gas prices remain high, a situation that experts warn could persist for months to come, even if the war ends.

In the meantime, voters like Dombrowski have lost faith in politics, saying politicians “want your money and give you fake promises.”

The factory where she works represents an example of such broken promises.

“The musical instrument company where she works, Conn Selmer, is shifting jobs overseas — even though the owner, Trump donor John Paulson, has echoed the president’s calls to keep manufacturing in the United States,” reports the Post. “Now their factory in northern Ohio is closing, despite employees’ pleas — and Dombrowski, at 64, needs a new job.”

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