Is Trump losing support from his base?

According to Bettridge’s law of headlines, “Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no’.”

This article is not an exception.

President Donald Trump has seen his overall approval rating tail off after reaching all-time highs at the start of his presidency. But among the Republican base? Trump’s support has remained rock solid.

Below are five charts on Trump’s approval rating, where Trump is losing support, and the cracks in the foundation that Trump will need to address to maintain his base.

1. Approaching the approval rating danger zone. Historically, presidents see their approval decline by around four percentage points over their first year in office. Trump, after reaching his all-time high at the start of his second term, has seen his approval rating decline by about double that, at around 8-10 points. The 40% mark is about where presidents lose traction. Let’s take a closer look at where this decline has come from.
2. Bleeding along the edges. The primary driver in the decline of Trump’s support has come from the edges: independents who lean Republican, but don’t identify as Republican. Trump’s base is strong, remaining steadfast even after Trump’s “honeymoon” period. Trump is losing support along the edges, not from the core.
3. Non-white, younger voters more likely to regret voting for Trump. In the 2024 election, Trump won over non-white and younger voters at high levels. Remember, these were groups that felt alienated by Democrats after the inflation of the Joe Biden presidency. Now, they are turning on Trump. Whether Trump can win them back will be a space to watch.
4. Cracks in the foundation? Trump has maintained a robust overall approval rating among Republicans, but there has been a modest decline in Republican approval of Trump’s handling of economic issues. Similar to his overall approval rating, the decline in his handling of economic issues is even more pronounced among Republican-leaning independents. Republicans are feeling economic angst, but so far, they have not blamed the President. Whether this eventually materializes in a decline in Trump’s overall approval remains to be seen. Another space to watch.
5. MAGA movement remains strong. Regardless of whether Trump’s approval declines by another point or so over the next few months, there’s no slowing down the MAGA movement within the Republican party.

Though much noise has been made of Trump’s relatively poor marks on issues like Iran and the Epstein files, Trump is still giving his base what they want, and they are rewarding him with strong levels of loyalty. No presidency is perfect, and Republicans recognize this.

To maintain this support, Trump will need to patch the cracks in the foundation and do more to speak to America’s economic angst. If he does so, he can begin to win back the broader coalition that propelled him to victory in 2024. If he can’t, it will put Republicans in a disadvantaged position in the 2026 midterms and leave his successor facing the same uphill battle that Kamala Harris faced in 2024.

That said, even after Trump, the populist, anti-establishment, and nativist movement that he brought to the Republican party will live on.