US Politics
Trump’s support with MAGA-vital non-college voters is ‘absolutely collapsing,’ says CNN’s polling guru
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Support for Donald Trump is declining among voters without a college degree, according to a new analysis, a worrying sign for Republicans given the demographic played a pivotal role in getting Trump elected to the White House twice.
In the 2024 election, Trump’s approval rating with this group was 14 points higher than rival Kamala Harris’s, according to CNN polling expert Harry Enten, a dynamic that has since flipped so that Trump now has a nine-point negative split with the same voters.
“He is underwater by nine points,” Enten said during a broadcast on Monday. “That’s a 23-point switcheroo with his base of non-college voters. He is absolutely collapsing with the group of voters that helped put him into the White House.”
Enten also found that this same demographic is moving away from the Republican party at large heading into the 2026 midterms, though the GOP still retains a slim net-positive approval rating.
“What we’re dealing with is a Donald Trump message that is not actually meeting the reality, and that is why non-college voters have been going away from the president of the United States and going away from Republicans as well,” the analyst added.
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A core part of the Trump pitch to this demographic was that the Republican’s aggressive tariffs would help bring back American manufacturing jobs lost to offshoring, a promise that so far hasn’t materialized.
In 2025, manufacturing shrunk by about 70,000 jobs, continuing years of net decline in the sector.
Support for Trump is declining among evangelical Protestants, another core group of supporters, the Pew Research Center found.
A late January survey showed that while the bloc still remained highly supportive of Trump overall, declining numbers said they support most of the president’s plans, approve of his job performance, and believe he acts ethically in office.
Overall, just 37 percent of all voters approve of Trump’s job performance, while 39 percent approve of his handling of the economy, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week.
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Despite these warning signs, Trump has continued to remain upbeat and make inaccurate claims about his public support.
Last week, the president bragged that his polling is the highest he has “ever received,” despite his approval rating continuing to drop throughout his second term.
“Obviously, people like a strong and powerful Country, with the best economy, EVER!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.