'MAGA-lite' voters who 'swung hard' for Trump in 2024 feel 'betrayed' by him: 'Nothing getting better'

13 May

Brandon Neumeister poses for a portrait in Shamokin, Pennsylvania U.S. May 12, 2025. REUTERS/Hannah Beier

After years of voting Democrat, Philadelphia voter Sharita White decided she would cast her ballot for Donald Trump. Eight months later she says she has nothing to show for it.

“I just see things just keep rising and stuff, and things does not look like they’re getting better and stuff,” White tells Vox. “Because at this point, it’s like nothing is getting better. And the economy is getting worse.”

White is not alone in her regret. Black, Latino, and young voters who went out on a limb and supported a party they normally shun are “turning sharply against” Trump, “reversing the gains he made throughout 2024 with traditionally Democratic voting groups.”

“We voted for Trump and Trump betrayed us,” said Jose, a 61-year-old retired Dominican American man. “The truth is people voted for one thing: the economy. A good economy. And these tariffs are hiking everything up. … And he’s kicking out hard workers and not touching the people who don’t work, he’s leaving them. How does that make sense?”

“I expected things to be a little different,” Drexel University student and Trump voter Nikita told Vox.

Trump’s overall job approval and personal favorability ratings have dropped, largely because voters disapprove of and distrust his handling of the economy. Now his coalition of unlikely voters is unraveling.

The mood began to sour in March, with Trump experiencing the sharpest drops in his job approval among voters who “swung hard” for him in November. Vox reporter Christian Paz claims this includes Latino voters (a roughly 13 percent drop), Black voters (a 9 percent drop) and young voters (-23 percent). Independents, meanwhile, registered a -18 drop and moderates show a -15 drop according to polls aggregated by the former political pollster Adam Carlson.

Additionally, low-engagement voters who don’t pay much attention to the news supported Trump in November but have also soured on the president, “swinging more than 30 points away from him since January, according to another set of averages calculated by the data journalist G. Elliott Morris.”

The most recent Pew Research Center study shows even Trump’s standing among MAGA-lite voters has fallen by about 13 percentage points over the last three months. Only his most ardent MAGA followers remain loyal with a largely unchanged 96 percent approval rate.

But voters aren’t returning to the Democratic Party with any enthusiasm, according to those same polls. The data that shows Trump voters fleeing him “also suggests that they aren’t running back to the Democrats,” reports Vox. Numbers show Congressional Democrats run nearly even with Republicans in head-to-head polling, “while one recent poll found only about 30 percent of voters view the Democratic Party favorably.”

Voters like White tell Vox she may as well have sat out the election, and they may stay at home next time.

“I’m going to be honest. I’m tired. I feel like at this point, my vote don’t matter,” said White, who expressed little faith in Democrats either.

Read the full Vox report at this link.

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