The Incredible Shrinking MAGA

If you follow politics on social media, you’ve probably encountered a claim about Donald Trump that goes like this: “LOL Trump’s support is rock-solid LOL, his base will never leave him LOL.” And it’s true: The white-hot core of MAGA does remain with him. But we should ask ourselves a different question: What’s happening with the coalition that elected Trump in 2024? How much of that constellation of constituencies is still with him?On those questions, the latest Fox News poll is nothing short of astonishing. On both his general approval ratings and many major issues, his numbers among voter groups that have reliably supported him in the past are awful. They’re also terrible among the non-Trumpy groups that he pulled into the coalition in 2024. And so, even if Trump can rely on his MAGA core, so what? Republicans can’t stave off major damage in the midterms with MAGA alone.Let’s look at the numbers, broken down by Trump-friendly groups, as found in the Fox poll’s internals:Non-college white voters. Trump’s overall approval among them is now slightly underwater, at 49–51. His approval on the economy among them is an abysmal 38–62. On immigration, he’s barely above water, at 53–47, with nearly half this constituency disapproving. And on his handling of Iran, he’s at 43–57.Rural voters. His overall approval among them is 51–49. He’s barely above water with this intensely pro-Trump constituency. On the economy, it’s 42–58. On immigration, it’s 52–48, again barely above water. On Iran, he’s underwater at 48–51.White men. His overall approval is a clean 50–50, meaning half that extremely Trump-friendly demographic disapproves. On the economy, he’s deeply underwater at 41–59. On immigration, he’s at 55–45: A surprisingly large chunk opposes him. On Iran, he’s at 43–57: deeply underwater.What about among the groups that Trump drew into the 2024 coalition? This is also bad:Voters under age 30. His overall approval among them is upside down at 36–64. On the economy, it’s 27–73. On immigration, it’s 37–63. And on Iran, it’s 27–73. Hispanics. His overall approval is a dismal 37–63. On the economy, it’s 35–65. On immigration, it’s 44–56 (not terrible for Trump, but hardly good). On Iran: 31–68.Why the focus on the economy, immigration, and Iran? Well, the core tenets of MAGA are economic nationalism, immigration restrictionism, and “America First” foreign policy, as Laura Field’s great book on MAGA ideology tells us. The overarching MAGA idea is that a latent majority quietly favors all those things. Trump has surfaced this hallowed truth as the tribune of the Real American People, a figure whose bonds to the American Volk’s true essence border on the mystical. He birthed a new, multiracial, working-class majority along the way.That story has collapsed. His economic approval is in the toilet due largely to tariffs—themselves a mainstay of “America First” economics. On border security, Trump still enjoys support. But immigration isn’t just the border. A core tenet of MAGA is the use of pro-Trump militias to purge the nation of undesirable immigrants with rejuvenating violence. White House and MAGA propaganda celebrate this constantly, treating it as something akin to a world-historical, civilization-rescuing event. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement is deeply, deeply unpopular, including in the Fox poll. The result: Large swaths of even Trump’s most supportive constituencies have turned on him over immigration in general. Unfortunately, Republicans still hold an advantage over Democrats on the issue in the Fox poll, but Trump’s deep unpopularity gives Democrats an opening to seriously contest that—including, importantly, among the working class.What about the Iran war? Here things get trickier. Certain MAGA figures have argued that it’s a betrayal of MAGA’s “America First” ethos. Trumpism, we’ve been endlessly told, represented a rebellion against warmongering foreign policy elites and their legacy of lies, hubris, and folly. But the idea that Trump and MAGA are antiwar in this sense has always been absurd. Trump’s quickness to embrace his own package of lies, hubris, and folly en route to his Iran debacle—and the spectacle of JD Vance, the ultimate self-designated antiwar populist, defending all of it—suggest that MAGA’s hostility to foreign adventurism was never very real. Indeed, Trump and his propagandists have quite explicitly declared that Trump can simply decree what MAGA is for on any given day. Thus they’ve even described the war as a realization of MAGA’s highest aspirations. This is not wrong, in one sense.