Former President Donald Trump holds campaign rally at the Rochester Opera House in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Sunday, January 21, 2024. Image via Liam Enea.
Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson calls them "normie" Republican voters, and they are a crucial chunk of the GOP base that is growing more and more fed up with President Donald Trump and his MAGA antics.
Writing for the New York Times on Tuesday, Anderson said that these normie Republicans account for roughly half of the party's voting base, and fall outside of its two most talked about categories: the "MAGA die-hards and Never Trumpers." Despite getting less media attention, these more moderate voters are "the most electorally critical slice" of the base right now, and they pose a major problem for the modern GOP.
"This slice is neither Republicans in exile who voted for Kamala Harris nor is it the Trumpist faithful," Anderson explained. "It’s with this group that the G.O.P.’s most immediate political challenge really lies."
Anderson explained that her work as a pollster has consistently found that Trump's "core" contingent of MAGA supporters is sticking with him, even amid the storm of scandals engulfing his second term. The normies, however, "have displayed increasing disaffection with the direction of the country under his leadership," despite firmly viewing themselves as Republicans and previously being supportive of his actions.
Now, this "flagging enthusiasm" from these crucial moderates has become "a powerful alarm bell for Republican candidates looking to win the 2026 elections."
"But under the surface, there are signs that for some Republicans, the thrill is gone," Anderson wrote. "Since last year, the percentage of Republicans who felt very favorably toward the president has fallen by 10 points. Only 44 percent of Republicans strongly approve of his handling of the economy."
She added: "As these trends have unfolded, the number of Republicans who say they think of themselves more as supporters of the party than of Mr. Trump has risen substantially."
The data further reveals that Republicans of all stripes consider themselves highly likely to vote in the midterms, and there are few indications of defections, as "91 percent of party-first Republicans expect to vote for a Republican in the midterms." In terms of enthusiasm, however, "the gap widens enormously," as "62 percent of Trump-first Republicans describe themselves as extremely motivated," while conversely, "less than half — 49 percent — of those party-first Republicans say the same."
"This matters because Democrats are essentially telling pollsters they will walk across hot coals to get to the polls," Anderson explained. "Fox News’s most recent poll finds that more Democrats than Republicans are “extremely” motivated to vote. In my own polling, 82 percent of Democrats say it is 'extremely important' to win the midterms and stop Mr. Trump from carrying out his agenda — while only 57 percent of Republicans say that it is similarly important for their party to win. That number falls to 47 percent among party-first Republicans."