They’re Not MAGAts Per Se, But They Were Trump’s Biggest Backers— And Now They’re Over Him

Politically Disengaged Voters Are Not Interested In Trump’s Austerity

Did anyone ever really doubt that Trump— who is after all a Republican— would be pushing austerity on the American people? That’s what they do; that’s their nature. In the end austerity is the essence of economic conservatism. Yesterday, Naftali Bendavid wrote about how the promised economic boom and golden age of the Trump campaign has turned into talk of sacrifice and taking your medicine. “It is not clear how Americans will respond to such a message, including voters who ousted Democrats from the White House because of high prices and Trump’s promise to make their lives better. ‘I don’t think it will resonate very well,’ said Marc Short, a longtime top adviser to former vice president Mike Pence. ‘I think it’s particularly optically difficult when the president is earning a billion dollars in crypto while asking Americans to cut back on toys and products for kids. That seems like a disconnect to me.’”

It doesn’t seem like a disconnect just to Short either. A new poll of battleground congressional districts held by 10 vulnerable conservatives— AZ–01 (Schweikert), AZ–06 (Ciscomani), CO–08 (Evans), IA–01 (Miller-Meeks), ME–02 (Golden), MI–07 (Barrett), NY–17 (Lawler), PA–01(Fitzpatrick), PA–07(Mackenzie), and PA–10 (Perry)— by Meeting Street Insights found nearly 7 in 10 respondents (68%) said cutting Medicaid benefits to pay for tax cuts is a bad idea— including 44% of Republicans. And 52% of voters said they’d be less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supports Medicaid cuts.

It’s worth noting that Trump won 9 out of these 10 districts— losing PA-01 by just 0.3%. Today, he could well lose all ten… and the conservatives who represent them (9 Republicans and a mangy Blue Dog) are all in severe jeopardy of forced retirement. Zach Basu wrote how “Trump’s grand economic vision relies on a simple tradeoff: that Americans will accept short-term personal sacrifice— higher prices, fewer options, slimmer profits— in service of long-term national strength… Critics on the left and right warn of an emerging ‘MAGA Maoism’— a movement that demands ideological purity, glorifies economic sacrifice, and embraces state power as a means to reshape society. Voters aren’t interested. Yesterday, Elliott Morris explained why the disengaged voters who gave Trump his razor-thin victory last year have lost whatever faith they ever had in him. “According to a New York Times analysis,” wrote Morris, “these low-turnout voters backed Trump by a double-digit margin, flipping the script from prior years when non-voters leaned Democratic. This wasn’t just a quirk of the horse-race polls; Campaign operatives, analysts, and post-election surveys all pointed to the same conclusion: The less you followed politics, the more likely you were to vote for Trump. But now that he's president again, something’s shifted. New polling shows that the very voters who powered Trump’s return to office are now abandoning him. And if that trend holds, it could upend assumptions about how much campaign messaging and elite discourse really matter. Because it turns out the people who don’t read The Times, don’t watch the Sunday shows, and don’t care about the policy details... still care when the economy sours and their lives get harder.”

Morris reported that “a post-election survey from Navigator Research found that the voters who paid the most attention to the news in 2024 voted for Kamala Harris by 6 percentage points, while those who paid no attention at all voted for Trump by 19. Democrats are also posting huge numbers in special elections, largely because low-engagement voters just rent showing up… [A] big reason why Trump won in 2024 is that the Americans who are least likely to be informed about the news and usually don’t show up voted for him. These are the people that are hardest to reach with political messaging; They do not read the New York Times, they do not digest a lot of political advertising on cable and network television, and they get the lion’s share of their opinions through dialogue with their friends, family, coworkers, neighbors and on social media. Staffers for Harris's 2024 campaign call these people ‘opt out’ voters. They are the significant fringe, the hard-to-reach middle, the swinging masses, the "reactionary center." Opt-out voters have loose ties to political parties and are more reactive to political and economic conditions, in theory, than partisans. One theory for why low-engagement voters voted for Trump is because they remembered the economy being good (or not being bad enough to hear about it) in 2018-2019, and they heard about inflation under Biden, so pulled the lever for Trump.”

So here’s how Morris sees the problem for Señor T and his party: “the economic conditions that led to Trump’s victory are no longer the conditions Americans find themselves in. Conditions are much worse today. But if we think these voters are more reactive to economic conditions, and less sensitive to messaging on things like immigration and budget cuts, would that mean this bloc is actually anti-Trump now? That seems to be the case. According to polls, opt-out voters are moving more against Trump than informed, engaged ones, and significantly disapprove of the job he’s doing as president… People who do not pay attention to the news have also moved against Trump in large numbers. Here's a chart of this relationship:

“If YouGov is right, the people who pay the least attention to the news and are the least involved in the political process are now the least likely to support Trump, rather than the most likely. That is a complete inversion of the relationship between engagement and support for Trump in 2024, and a return to the old dynamic of less-informed/engaged voters being systematically more friendly to Democratic candidates and causes.”

Now, with 401ks sinking, goods getting more expensive, shelves emptying, and the president saying kids should have just three dolls instead of 30, they have moved against the president again. Their lack of incentive to see politics through partisan lenses, and to process data from opinion leaders according to one's own party identity, may make these people more rational in reacting to economic stimulus (even if they aren't evaluating future policy change accurately).

… The engagement gap means that Democrats don't really need to focus too much of their messaging power on economics, since conditions are inherently dragging Trump down among those voters who are hard-to-reach, anyway. But the party still needs to sell voters on some sort of positive/constructive case for prosperity— one that isn't just "we're not Trump." Because in 2028, the Republican nominee for president won't be, either. And in 2032, the engagement gap could cut the other way.

Meanwhile, Trump has lost arguably the best advantage the Republicans had for the future. And if conditions remain poor, they may lose ground, not gain it. After all, it is their mess— isn't this how democracy is supposed to work, anyway?