Is Trump Expanding His Coalition?

If not, why not?

It’s hard to believe Trump’s only been in office for a month and a half. He’s certainly delivering on many of his aggressive campaign promises and his general pledge to shake things up in Washington. His address to Congress on Tuesday night did not stint on retailing how far and fast he has gone in changing business as usual.

On one level, his fast start could be viewed as a smart response to the overwhelming sense among voters that the political and economic system in the country needs major changes or to be completely torn down. But is all this frenetic activity succeeding in expanding his coalition beyond those who supported him in the last election?

After all, it doesn’t follow that, even if most voters want big changes, voters will necessarily be happy with all of the big changes the Trump administration is pursuing and, importantly, with how those changes are being implemented. Voters don’t want change just for the sake of change; they want change that actually improves the system and brings it closer to their vision of how government should work. And they certainly don’t want change that might negatively impact them personally.

That helps explain why Trump’s popularity has declined from its post-inauguration high. At that point, his net approval (approval minus disapproval) was around +8, hinting at the possibility of an expanded Trump coalition. But now it is only around +1 in the RCP running average and his overall approval rating hovers close to his share of the vote in the 2024 elections.

That said, it is true that Trump’s popularity so far is running above his first term ratings; in that term his approval rating never cracked 50 percent and went into net negative territory very quickly. But that is a very low bar indeed since his early first term ratings were historically bad. Trump’s current popularity trend indicates his early bid to broaden his coalition beyond his 2024 supporters has not succeeded.

Internals from the most recent AtlasIntel poll—now Nate Silver’s highest rated pollster thanks to their stellar performance in the 2024 election—illustrate how similar Trump’s current coalition looks to his 2024 support. His net approval is +21 among working-class (non-college) respondents, but -27 among the college-educated. Among those with under $50,000 in household income his net approval is +16; among those with $50,000-$100,000 income, his net approval is +9—but among those whose household incomes are over $100,000 his approval is net negative: -18.

Of course, Trump’s 2024 coalition was a winning one so simply maintaining it is not an obvious disaster. However, Trump’s 2024 victory, while solid, was hardly a landslide—his popular vote margin was only about a point and a half and most of his swing state victory margins were close to that narrow national margin. If he doesn’t expand his 2024 coalition he and his party will be only modest voter defections away from an electoral drubbing. That could happen as soon as the 2026 midterm elections, where the incumbent party is generally at a disadvantage to begin with.

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Digging into recent polling data reveals the contradictions in Trump’s approach that undermine his ability to expand his coalition. On the one hand, some of his actions are quite popular from cracking down on illegal immigration to getting biological boys and men out of girls’ and women’s sports and restricting medicalization of minors for “gender dysphoria.” He is also on secure ground in opposing affirmative action, advocating a colorblind meritocratic society and pursuing an “all-of-the-above” energy policy that includes fossil fuel production.

Even in these areas, the devil is in the details and Trump is in some danger of going too far too fast. But the dangers for him are much larger in another area where, at first blush, public opinion would appear to be on his side: cutting wasteful government spending and promoting efficiency. In a recent New York Times poll, 60 percent of the public agreed that government “is almost always wasteful and inefficient” rather than “does a better job than people give it credit for” (37 percent). Views were even more lop-sided among working-class (non-college) respondents; by 2:1 (64-32 percent) they believe that government is wasteful and inefficient.

Similarly, in a recent Harvard/Harris poll, 77 percent of voters thought a full examination of all government expenditures was needed, rather than letting all contracts and expenditures proceed unimpeded; 70 percent believed government expenditures were full of “waste, fraud and inefficiency,” rather than fair and reasonable; and 69 percent supported the goal of cutting $1 trillion from government expenditures. Such findings suggest that an aggressive attack on government waste and inefficiency has the potential to be very popular and expand Trump’s coalition.

But the key word here is “potential”. Activating that potential depends on two things the Trump administration is paying little attention to: 1) it has to be clear to voters that actual government waste and inefficiency is being attacked rather than just cutting government willy-nilly; and 2) it has to be clear to voters that cuts to government are not affecting and will not affect them negatively.

On both counts, the Trump drive to trim government, spearheaded by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is falling short. While DOGE audits have indeed found many examples of highly questionable government expenditures and related inefficiencies, DOGE has not exactly been wielding a scalpel to excise these inefficiencies. Instead, wholesale layoffs and expenditure stoppages have been implemented which, even if temporary, are difficult for voters to connect to the ostensible goal of eliminating government waste. Particularly egregious here has been the DOGE habit of firing any government employees who have a “provisional” status, presumably because this is a quick way of reducing headcount in agencies and generating savings.

But such moves have little obvious connection to promoting government efficiency. As Oren Cass, chief economist at American Compass, has put it, this is pressing the “easy button” for no other reason than it is easy. The result is likely to be neither productive nor popular.

This will be particularly the case where eliminating workers leads to staffing shortages in ways the public notices (e.g., at National Parks). And nothing makes voters more nervous than the possibility that entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—will be interfered with by DOGE’s actions or Trump’s future plans. This is a sure loser.

Given all this, it’s not surprising that voters’ enthusiasm for DOGE, Musk and the actually-existing project of overhauling government (as opposed to the theory) is rapidly ebbing. This is neatly illustrated by Navigator Research polling showing that the “Department of Government Efficiency” without Musk’s name linked to it is actually viewed favorably but once you attach Musk’s name to it—thereby evoking the real-world DOGE—favorability plummets to 37 percent.

Consistent with this, Musk’s favorability rating has been rapidly declining and in a recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll, his approval rating on the job he is doing within the federal government was a mere 34 percent. And in a recent CNN/SSRS poll, respondents by almost 2:1 thought Trump giving Musk a prominent role in his administration was a bad thing rather than a good thing. Views among working-class respondents were only slightly less negative.

Unsurprisingly, views are mixed on reductions in the federal workforce so far, both in terms of overall approval and specific effects. In a new CBS News poll, majorities thought that the reductions will eventually “remove workers doing unnecessary jobs” but also thought they will “remove essential workers” and “reduce or cut services for people like you.” This suggests thoroughly cross-pressured voters rather than enthusiastic supporters.

Also suggesting cross-pressured voters, respondents in the CNN poll by 55 to 45 percent thought Trump so far hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems rather than has had the right priorities. Clearly, the high profile efforts of DOGE aren’t helping the Trump administration get on the right side of that question which is probably a prerequisite for building his coalition.

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Then there’s the economy, particularly the cost of living, which was central to Trump’s victory in 2024. Voters want to see improvements on this front, regardless of what else Trump does. It’s early days but so far voters are not impressed.

In the Washington Post poll, 76 percent of respondents rate current gas or energy prices negatively (not so good or poor), 73 percent rate the incomes of average Americans negatively and 92 percent (!) rate food prices negatively. In the CNN poll, only 27 percent think Trump has been about right on trying to reduce the price of everyday goods, compared to 62 percent who believe he hasn’t gone far enough. And in the CBS poll, 82 percent and 80 percent, respectively, wanted Trump to put a high priority on the economy and inflation but only 36 percent and 29 percent, respectively, believed Trump was prioritizing these issues a lot.

There’s a message there for the Trump administration should they care to hear it. His mandate was to shake up the system by pursuing popular priorities Democrats were ignoring, especially on illegal immigration, and deliver prosperity for ordinary workers and families. His mandate was not to do whatever excites his base the most or accords with his personal priorities.

In short, Trump may be over-interpreting his mandate, just as Biden did when he took office in 2021, which will prevent him from seizing the center from a disorganized and remarkably unpopular Democratic Party. Instead of a second Trump administration realigning American politics and building a more powerful working-class, populist GOP, the Democrats could limp back into power and our current partisan stalemate would continue.

Call it “Politics Without Winners.” In our paper of the same name my AEI colleague Yuval Levin and myself observed:

Surveying the parties’ decisions in one election cycle after another, it is hard to avoid concluding that they are stuck at 50–50 because they choose to be. Both have prioritized the wishes of their most intensely devoted voters—who would never vote for the other party—over the priorities of winnable voters who could go either way. They have done this even as the nature of their most devoted voters has changed. They have not operated as institutions geared to construct broad coalitions and win broad general-election victories. Instead, they have focused on fan service—satisfying their most partisan and loyal constituencies.

It's early days for the second Trump administration but that still sounds about right.