Elliott Morris assesses the the April data, and finds two groups with whom Trump is not underwater, 2024 Trump voters and men over 65: Going back to his first term, it has been common to poo-poo any weak Trump approval ratings by observing that he remains strong with his base, a point that is both trivially true and immaterial given that his base has never been anything like a majority coalition. If the Republican candidate in 2028 got only 84% of Trump’s 2024 voters they would be looking at something like a 2008-scale defeat. The groups Trump is below 50% with are…more numerous: That is brutal.
Some of these declines, most notably among non-college whites, probably do not constitute short-term opportunities to flip voters to Democrats in significant numbers. But I think there’s a very good chance that we’re going to see a reversal of Trump’s major gains with Hispanic and Black voters, just like George W. Bush pissed away a good performance with the former after 2004. And it’s this data that shows why Trump is so desperate to find some way to rig the midterms this year.