So it seems an odd strategy that he and members of his administration keep saying things that are seemingly designed to keep that base away from the ballot box for this November’s midterm elections.
The latest example came this week after U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro appeared on Fox News and promised to arrest anyone stopped in Washington with a firearm but without the proper license. Her comments came after Trump himself rankled Second Amendment advocates when he repeatedly complained that Alex Pretti, the second anti-ICE protester shot dead in Minneapolis, was armed.
“Within the gun community, people are very upset about the way Trump has talked about guns,” Republican strategist Evan Siegfried told the Washington Examiner. “It was seen as almost a complete betrayal of the Second Amendment.”
Separately, other Trump supporters have expressed the same sense of “betrayal” regarding the administration’s lack of disclosure with the Jeffrey Epstein files, even after congressional Republicans succeeded in their endeavor to have former President Bill Clinton and one-time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testify before the House Oversight committee this month.
“If your representative, Democrat or Republican, is still silent about the Epstein files, or claiming it’s ‘much ado about nothing,’ it’s time to elect a new one,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) wrote on social media after last week’s Epstein files dump.
Similarly, Trump caused consternation with his comments about abortion and the requirement for Republicans to be “flexible” regarding the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funding from being spent on terminating pregnancies, as his administration tries not to scare more centrist women after Democrats’ success in doing just that in 2022.
These three examples are on top of persistent complaints that Trump is prioritizing foreign policy while taking his eye off the ball on domestic issues, to the point that the White House has opened fewer of the president’s meetings with foreign leaders to the press than in the past.
“Congress just funded Israel approximately $4 billion dollars today. They are still killing children. What happened to the cease fire? What happened to the ‘Board of Peace’?” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote on social media Wednesday.
For Marist University Institute for Public Opinion director Lee Miringoff, “right now,” Trump’s base is “largely intact,” though polling suggests he is experiencing a “setback” with some demographic groups that provided him with the “key” back to the White House in 2024.
“Notably independents, younger voters, and Latinos,” Miringoff told the Washington Examiner. “Ultimately, without Trump on the ballot, turnout will dip to the advantage of the Democrats, who do better with more engaged voters. Trump was elected as a non-incumbent. He’s off-message with [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Minneapolis, NATO and our allies, Greenland, etc. Voters want action on prices and are not convinced that tariffs are doing any good.”
Trump’s average approval rating is net negative 11 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics, among the lowest of his second presidency. At the same time, Democrats now have an average five-point advantage over Republicans in generic congressional ballot polling.
To that end, Democrats have been underscoring Trump’s record on cost-of-living issues, including the cost of healthcare insurance, in addition to ethical and elite us vs. them criticisms, as they differentiate their party from the Republican Party ahead of the midterm elections.
Simultaneously, the Democratic National Committee has sought to take advantage of the anger over the Epstein files, despite Democrats not advocating in support of the files’ release when the party wielded more political power.
“Donald Trump and his White House have spent more than a year attempting to cover up the truth about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and now — when Epstein’s survivors are still waiting for justice and accountability — he’s telling Americans to move on,” another DNC spokeswoman, Jaelin O’Halloran, told reporters. “The utter disregard for the victims of Epstein and the demands of the American public is absolutely disgusting. Democrats will continue fighting to release the full files until we finally get transparency that Trump himself promised on the campaign trail.”
In spite of the polling and political plays, Republicans, including party strategist Cesar Conda, dismissed concerns about whether disappointment in Trump could undermine the GOP in nine months’ time.
“On the core MAGA issues — the border, taking on the political and media establishment, reshaping the courts, standing up to China, and putting American workers first — Trump has delivered more than any Republican in modern history,” Conda told the Washington Examiner. “That matters far more to this base than a few headlines. MAGA voters know he’s not an ideological purist; they care that he fights. And they know exactly where he stands — as he’s said himself, he is MAGA.”
TRUMP RENEWS ELECTION INTEGRITY CRACKDOWN EVEN AS GOP SHOWS LITTLE APPETITE
Specifically regarding Trump and Pirro’s Second Amendment comments, the White House stood by their respective statements, contending that the president supports the constitutionally protected right to bear arms, before pointing to a press briefing by press secretary Karoline Leavitt last month.
“While Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, Americans do not have a constitutional right to impede lawful immigration enforcement operations,” Leavitt said at the time.
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