Republicans’ 2024 coalition is cracking in real time.
President Donald Trump roared back into office two years ago after making major gains with young voters and Americans of color. Now those key groups appear to be moving away from him amid an unpopular Iran war and his lagging approval ratings, according to new results from the POLITICO Poll conducted by PF Global.
Roughly 9% of Trump 2024 voters plan to cast their ballot for a Democrat this year, compared with just over 2% of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ voters who now plan to back Republicans.
Underlying that shift is a lack of enthusiasm from two groups central to Trump’s win: Latinos and young people.
At the end of last year, 56% of Hispanic Trump voters identified as MAGA Republicans. As of this October, just 37% still do, revealing a frustration with the label that denotes some of the president’s most loyal supporters.
At the end of last year, 50% of young Trump voters ages 20 to 29 said they were certain to vote. As of this October, just 38% say this.
It’s an alarming sign for the party heading into election night, as Republicans race to save deep-red seats across the map and juice turnout among the MAGA base to avoid unthinkable losses.
The scramble on the campaign trail reveals the extent of the concern. Speaker Mike Johnson is making one final campaign swing through South Texas on Tuesday, where Republicans have been racing to assuage Hispanic voters’ concerns over mass deportations and the economy. GOP officials are fretting about the impact of lingering inflation and high prices on working-class voters of all races, including young men they’re scared to death won’t show up to the polls in strong enough numbers.
They’re also pouring millions of last-minute dollars into a series of southern states with large Black populations whose voters appear to be surging to the polls in record numbers — like Mississippi, South Carolina and even Louisiana — to shore them up.
“The coalition that we built under Trump doesn’t fucking exist anymore,” said Gina Swoboda, a longtime Trump ally and former chair of the Arizona Republican Party.
The White House has been trying to stem the bleeding within the Trump coalition of voters: The president has barnstormed a series of largely red states and is holding a flurry of tele-rallies in the final days.
“Two years ago, Trump and other Republicans had a play with those voters because they were frustrated with Biden and Harris; two years later, things might be less bad than they were two years ago — but they’re still concerned,” said Scott Walker, the Republican former governor of Wisconsin and 2016 presidential candidate who now leads the conservative Young America’s Foundation.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Trump has “crisscrossed the country” campaigning for Republicans and drawing a contrast with “the radical-left Democrats.”
“President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party,” Bis added.
Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement that the “Trump administration has delivered on its promises to the American people” and the president “has barnstormed the nation to tout these achievements.”
GOP Latino voters start to shed the ‘MAGA’ label
The durability of Republicans’ 2024 coalition is a crucial test for the party’s future. Republicans’ inroads with young, Latino and Black voters propelled the party into a trifecta of power in Washington, and keeping those gains will be key to the GOP’s bid to hold onto power. A regression in support from those groups could send Republicans back to the drawing board as they craft a winning formula for the 2028 presidential election.
Top Republicans are incredibly worried about losing their grip on Hispanic voters, as they try to stave off a bloodbath in South Texas, losses across key Florida House seats and more.
There’s been a 19-point drop between last November and this October of Hispanic Trump voters who identify as MAGA, part of Trump’s core base, according to the poll. While two-thirds of these voters still intend to vote for Republicans in the midterm election, their dissatisfaction with Trump’s agenda is clear.
The survey found that Hispanic Trump voters are more likely than non-Hispanic Trump voters to have voted for Democrats in the past decade — and think the Trump administration’s mass deportations are too aggressive.
Just one election season ago, Trump romped to victory in South Texas over Hispanic voters’ concerns about the border and the economy; Texas Republicans redrew the congressional map last year to make seats in South Texas even more favorable.
But the Trump administration’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement, championed by senior White House official Stephen Miller, has sent Hispanics swinging back, according to four Hill Republicans, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. It’s harmed what once seemed like prime opportunities to unseat Democratic Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, while endangering GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in a newly redrawn district the president won by 18 points in 2024. A group of Hispanic GOP lawmakers have continued to raise concerns directly to Johnson and senior White House officials.
“Would I feel better if gas were $2.50 instead of $3.30? Yeah. But good luck convincing a guy things are getting better while ICE is picking up his uncle,” said one Texas Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The White House in response provided statements from Texas GOP Reps. Pat Fallon, Brandon Gill, Ronny Jackson and Lance Gooden defending Miller.
“Hispanic Americans will continue to see that the Republican Party is fighting for the issues that matter most to their families, and Stephen Miller is absolutely leading the charge,” Jackson said.
Senior Hill Republicans have been trying to salvage the imperiled South Texas House seats in a flurry of visits over the past few weeks. But they privately believe they reached the point days ago where no amount of money would stave off the impending disaster.
“It’s the economy,” said Daniel Garza, the president of the Koch-backed LIBRE initiative and a Texas-based Republican strategist. Republicans’ vote share of Latino voters has increased steadily over the last decade, Garza noted, which is a long-term win for the party. But he says independent Latino voters have grown disillusioned since Trump’s return to office, especially on the economy. “I think they had higher expectations,” he added.
Young Republicans aren’t certain they’ll vote
One year ago, half of young Trump voters were certain they’d vote in this year’s election.
But this past spring, that number dropped sharply: the percentage of young people who’d backed Trump who were certain they’d vote dropped by 11 points.
As early as March, shortly after the war in Iran began, young GOP supporters began to voice their frustrations that the president had broken a core campaign promise. Other Republicans predicted that if the war lasted longer than a few weeks, its consequences would come back to bite the party at the ballot box.
That chorus included influential voices like podcaster Joe Rogan, who has significant influence over young men. He had hosted both Trump and Vice President JD Vance on his show in the lead up to the 2024 election.
Some Republicans are concerned that the big-tent team they formed just two years ago has been irreparably splintered — and their lack of a strong affordability message is to blame.
“We forgot that we’re a populist party,” said one Republican operative in Florida who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the state of the GOP coalition. Areas like South Florida, and Miami-Dade County in particular, were central to Trump’s diverse, big-tent party: the president flipped the longtime Democratic county for the GOP for the first time since 1988 in 2024.
“We went from being a very populist, scrappy kind of kumbaya party to this kind of almost elitist Republican Party,” they added.
But even as Democrats see the prospect of significant wins and a crumbling GOP coalition, some warn they, too, haven’t found a winning message they can build on in future cycles.
“It’s like being in a relationship: You break up with someone and you have a little distance, and then you start romanticizing them,” said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist and veteran of Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaigns. “I think [Democrats] all have recognized, very much in the summer, just to move out of the way. Because we’re watching voters being like, ‘I want out of this relationship with Trump.’”
