Is Trump losing his grip on working-class voters?
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How strong has Trump’s support been among white working-class and rural voters historically?
President Donald Trump has long counted on white working class and rural voters as one of the most reliable parts of his political base. But new polling and voter interviews suggest some of that support may be softening with frustrations over the economy, health care, immigration and the cost of living starting to surface. So what happens when some of Trump's key voters are unhappy but not necessarily ready to become Democrats? Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. USA Today national correspondent Chris Kenning reported on that question and he joins The Excerpt now. Chris, thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
As I noted, Trump has long relied on white working class and rural voters. What did you find that suggests his standing with some of those voters is weakening?
That has been a really important group for a long time. And in 2024, two out of three white working class voters backed him, according to some exit polling. And he also won nearly 70% of the rural vote that year, according to some of that same exit polling. Some people were drawn to vows to kind of reboot the economy post-COVID. you know, through bringing back manufacturing and industries like coal and cracking down on illegal immigration. But it's been interesting because there's been a series of polling from a lot of different organizations in recent months that has really shown that disapproval has started to rise among those groups, including reaching some slight majorities. And most of that seems to be driven by economic concerns.
But you had You know, a CBS poll in May that found 54% of white non-college voters disapproved of his performance, and that was up from 32% in February of 2025. Among rural voters, you had a June Reuters poll that found 48% disapproved of Trump, and that was up from 34% after he took office. So it's a significant shift that we've seen.
I want to drill down on the dissatisfaction that's rooted in the economy. When you talked to voters, what were they actually feeling day to day?
The voters that I spoke with and some of the polls have teased out where the issues kind of landed for them. But, you know, these are real pocketbook issues from the people I talked to. Some people had disagreements with some of Trump's policies not related to economics, but that was a big one. And these are things that hit close to home and are driving a lot of this affordability debate. Obviously, rising gas prices because of the war in Iran have been a very big part of the issue. They see that every day, you know, higher food prices. They see that every day in the grocery store. And then there's also, you know, that comes on top of housing costs have been going up. The cost of medical insurance and care is going up.
So they're feeling that that impact close to home.
One of the people you spoke with was Ashton Reed. He's a 22-year-old in Missouri who backed Trump in 2024, and now he's not happy with him at all. What struck you the most about how he talks about that change?
Yeah, he was an interesting guy. He had worked at a HVAC company and was currently out of work because he'd been laid off looking for another job. But he'd voted for Trump in 2024, drawn for some of the same reasons. He thought that it was Biden's fault that the economy had suffered a lot of inflation because of during the COVID era and was still kind of struggling with that. And he saw Trump as a businessman who's really going to turn things around. That was a widely held view in his part of Missouri. But since then, he's just like everyone else, he's seen the prices rise. And especially because one of the drivers of the gas prices is the war in Iran and the rising oil prices. And he had told me that this was the kind of war that
Trump had also sort of vowed to stay out of. So disappointed with that. And, you know, he was bothered by other, like I say, other things like kind of aggressive ICE enforcement. But it's the costs that really are affecting the family.
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