Donald Trump has seen a steady and precipitous decline in his popularity among his own voters since the spring of 2021, according to more than 44,000 interviews conducted by Change Research. In May of 2021, 63% of those who voted for Trump in 2020 rated him 10 out of 10. But that number has fallen, month after month. And by January 2022, for the first time, fewer than half of 2020 Trump voters rated him 10 out of 10. While it is still true that most Trump voters still think quite highly of him, these trends show that his dominance among the Republican base has been eroding.
Trump’s sharpest decline happened in summer 2021, but has continued to fall ever since
In his first few months after leaving office, Trump’s popularity among his base remained steady, with the percentage of Trump voters who rated him 10 out of 10 bouncing between 60% and 64% from January through May.
But in the first months of summer, that number saw a relatively sharp decline, to 54% by July. In each of the six months that have followed, the percentage of Trump voters giving him a perfect rating has fallen or stayed flat.
Trump still viewed positively by Trump voters – but more turn on him each month
Though fewer Trump voters give him a perfect rating, the vast majority still view him positively: in January 2022, his average rating out of 10 was 8.53 (down from 9.05 in May 2021).
That said, the last 8 months have seen a gradual but consistent increase in the number of Trump voters who view him outright negatively. In January 2022, 9 percent of Trump voters rated him between 1 and 5 out of 10, up from 3.4% a year earlier.
SO WHAT
We have seen additional erosion of Trump support among Republicans in a variety of polls we have conducted recently:
- In a poll of 1011 voters in rural counties in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin conducted from January 5-11, 2022, just 60% of Republicans said they hoped Trump would run for President again in 2024.
- In our annual poll of 757 New Mexico voters December 5-10, 2021, just 42% of Republicans rated Trump a ‘10’ on favorability, a decline from 57% in November 2020 and 68% in November 2019.
- In a poll of 1,585 Florida voters August 14-17, 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis received a higher strongly favorable rating among Republicans than Trump (94% DeSantis-70% Trump).
While enough of a share of the Republican electorate feels strong ties to the former President for him to be considered the prohibitive favorite in 2024, time is not his friend. If this erosion continues and he gets weaker with the voters he needs the most, he could face the real possibility of losing with Republicans before even facing the Democratic nominee. Sad!