Since the start of the Iran war, support for President Donald Trump has allegedly fractured among Republicans, drawing significant attention. Initially, the conservative break with the president was limited to certain influencers speaking out about his leadership failures and broken campaign promises — such as staying out of foreign wars — but new polling suggests that the phenomenon has broken containment.
A recent AP NORC survey found that Trump’s approval rating has slid to just 33%, with 67% disapproving of his overall performance as president. This number is even lower on key issues like the economy, where Trump enjoys just a 30% approval rating and the cost of living, where just 23% of respondents to the survey said they approved of his performance.
The survey, however, also measured some of the fractures in the 2024 coalition, which have been growing larger since the beginning of the Iran war in February. One of the clearest indicators of this fracturing is in the differential opinions of self-described MAGA Republicans and Republicans more generally. Per the survey, about 23% of respondents consider themselves MAGA, versus 38% who consider themselves Republicans more generally. And this core group of MAGA Republicans holds significantly different views of the president than their non-MAGA counterparts.
In the data crosstabs provided to Salon, it becomes clear that MAGA Republicans consider themselves more conservative, with some 41% ranking themselves “very conservative” versus just 28% of all Republicans, and just 12% of non-MAGA Republicans.
MAGA Republicans also have a far more favorable view of Trump, with about 90% approving of his job performance. Among non-MAGA Republicans, Trump’s performance is more divisive, with just 32% of moderate, non-MAGA Republicans approving of Trump, who is more popular among somewhat and very conservative non-MAGA Republicans, but still only enjoys about a 55% approval rating.
Importantly, MAGA Republicans tend to be older than non-MAGA Republicans and are more likely to be white, with 46% of MAGA Republicans being over 60 years old, compared to 27% of non-MAGA Republicans, and 83% of MAGA Republicans being white, compared to 67% of non-MAGA Republicans.
“Whatever the president is pursuing at a given time is what MAGA’s ideology is. It’s not, by any means, traditional Republican.”
While the data is unable to make clear whether or not Republicans are moving away from the MAGA label — this was the first time the pollster asked the question — it does show a growing division in the GOP over a label deeply associated with Trump and which has been part of the party for a decade at this point.
Mark Meckler, a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots and president of the Convention of States Foundation, a conservative organization that advocates for amending the Constitution, told Salon in an interview that he believes that, while Trump’s 2024 coalition isn’t destroyed yet, the trend could spell disaster for the party in future elections, especially in 2028, due a fight over ideology.
“I don’t think MAGA has a well-defined ideology,” Meckler said. “I think it really is, generally speaking, whatever the president is pursuing at a given time is what MAGA’s ideology is. It’s not, by any means, traditional Republican. It’s certainly not traditional neocon, but it’s also not dovish, the way maybe you might look at Tucker Carlson as an isolationist.”
The lack of a MAGA ideology stands in contrast to the 2024 election, in Meckler’s assessment. Heading into that year’s presidential election, there was a concerted effort to try to mold a coherent ideology out of MAGA. Trump’s presidency, however, has made it so that MAGA is whatever Trump says it is.
In a recent post, Trump defended Mark Levin, a conservative commentator, from criticism from his former supporters by saying “They are not MAGA, I am.”
While the lack of ideology behind MAGA is a problem for 2028 and beyond, Meckler said Republicans have a more immediate problem on their hands in 2026: voter turnout. Meckler has been ringing alarm bells for Republicans, telling other conservatives that they are going to need a robust door-to-door operation heading into 2026 if they want any chance at stemming a blue wave in the midterms and, and field operations are not something that the GOP has historically been good at.
Part of the reason Meckler is emphasizing field operations is that the parts of the 2024 coalition who have been breaking with Trump the most are often already the sort of voters who are less likely to vote in a midterm, such as young men. It’s also because Republicans have gerrymandered many districts to maximize their advantage. In doing so, they’ve also made their marginal advantage in each of these districts smaller. In order to avoid being overcome by a Democratic wave election like in 2018, Republicans will need to get the conservative voters that they already know are in these districts to the polls.
“If red voters are demobilized because we don’t have a ground game, well, then the efficiency actually flips against Republicans pretty quickly. And I think this plays most importantly into the ground game,” Meckler said. “These red seats rely on differential turnout and not just persuasion. And in a lot of these engineered GOP districts, the cushions are based on assumptions, for example, that rural exurban Republicans are going to keep turning out at high rates while urban and suburban Democrats inside that district underparticipate. But if the Democrats are knocking yours and the GOP isn’t, then that assumption fails.”
In the 2024 election, Trump’s campaign largely relied on outside groups like Turning Point USA to do their ground game, and, while it worked out for them that year, it’s unclear whether that win is replicable in the current political environment. And, in the case of TPUSA specifically, the group is under new leadership. While Erika Kirk, the group’s new leader, is well-liked by many conservatives, Meckler noted that Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last year, was a singular figure for many conservatives and that his absence will likely be felt.
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Logan Phillips, an election analyst and the founder of election forecaster Race to the WH, told Salon that in his current model, he is anticipating Democrats will win 233 of the House’s 435 seats in the midterms, given current trends and historical data. He also gives the Democrats about a 45% chance to win the Senate. Part of the reason for the rosy projection for Democrats is that he expects Trump’s low approval rating to depress turnout among voters who would otherwise be likely to support a Republican.
“If that ends up happening, it’s a lot better than it’s been for either party the last few years,” Phillips said. “If a party has a chance to just sweep a ton of competitive districts, as Democrats did in ‘18 or Republicans in ‘14, it can become kind of one of those mega cycles.”
Phillips said, however, that he sees the notion of potential disaffiliation from the label “MAGA” as potentially a bigger deal in the immediate future. It also marks a shift in what makes a MAGA Republican. Even relatively recently, Phillips said, the label was associated with a disinterest in foreign wars, being anti-immigration and more populist economic ideas, at least compared with more traditional Republicans.
At this juncture, however, Trump has destroyed that identity through his foreign adventurism, his unpopular handling of mass deportations and the economic damage caused by his policies at home and abroad. And, his unpopularity is opening him up to increased criticism, even from his former supporters.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Donald Trump’s approval rating ends up dropping with Republicans. If you see the number of people who call themselves MAGA Republicans decrease, and some of them might say they’re Republicans first,” Phillips said. “What I will say is we’re seeing the beginning of the piercing of his biggest and most unique political strength. Donald Trump gets the benefit of the doubt from his supporters at a level I don’t think we’ve seen a president given before, and it has protected him from at least a half dozen scandals that probably would have ended another person’s presidency.”
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