Nate Cohn

Was this a permanent shift or was this just a reaction to Joe Biden?

On its face, it looks a little bit more like a reaction to Joe Biden, or at the very least, it's certainly not a permanent shift.

I do think, though, that that doesn't mean that what happened during the 2024 campaign wasn't real.

What it may mean is that Donald Trump squandered an opportunity that he did enter with real support from groups that haven't traditionally voted for Republicans, but he has not succeeded in consolidating that support in office.

In fact, he's reminded voters of the very reasons why they didn't support him initially in 2016 or in 2020.

We know a lot about why in one respect, which is that on almost every question we ask about, voters disapprove of his handling of the issues.

So they disapprove of his handling of the economy.

They disapprove of his handling of immigration.

They disapprove of his handling of the federal government spending.

They disapprove of the big

beautiful bill.

They disapprove of his foreign policy on Israel and Ukraine and Venezuela.

There's no shortage of explanations.

There are only a very small number of bright spots for Trump in this poll.

And I would say his handling of the border is really the only unequivocal strong point here.

I do think that the poll suggests that of all of those things, that the economy is still the single most important reason why Donald Trump has lost ground.

That's partly because he

many of his worst numbers are on the economy.

And it's partly because when you really dig into the attitudes of the individual voters who say that they no longer support him, those voters are really unusually likely to say that the economy and affordability is the biggest problem facing the country.

I think that's right.