U.S. President Donald Trump reacts while speaking to members of the media on board Air Force One en route to the U.S., October 30, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
In 2024, Donald Trump showed his political resilience when — despite facing four criminal indictments and a conviction on 34 felony counts — he was voted back into the White House. Trump seriously exaggerated the size of his victory, claiming it was a "landslide" when, in fact, he won the national popular vote by only 1.5 percent. It was a close election, but Trump won the popular vote for the first time and expanded his support among independents, swing voters, Latinos, tech companies, and Generation Z.
But Salon's Heather Digby Parton, in a post-Thanksgiving article published on November 28, lays out a variety of ways in which Trump — ten months into his second presidency — is feeling increasingly beleaguered.
"Like the president himself, the Trump train, which looked like high-speed rail during the first few months of his second term, is slowing down," Parton explains. "And it's a much more rickety machine than it first appeared…. Over the past few weeks the Republicans have lost the argument — if not the process — on the government shutdown. Despite the best efforts of Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Congress voted almost unanimously for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. Trump failed to persuade the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, and his 'health care plan' has been rejected by the House's MAGA caucus."
The Salon journalist continues, "Now, a contingent of congressional Republicans are rebelling against his proposed sellout to Russia, and his staunch ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., defied him and then announced her resignation, prompting whispers that she's just the first of many House Republicans who are considering leaving Congress before the 2026 midterms — and possibly even prompting a shift in the majority."
Trump's heavy emphasis on the economy, especially inflation, did a lot to get him past the finish line in 2024, according to polls. But Parton notes that according to a late November CBS News/YouGov poll, a "whopping 76 percent" of Americans "disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, while 24 percent approve."
"Americans are rejecting Trump's policies across the board," Parton observes. "He's drastically underwater on the economy, immigration, inflation and trade, all supposedly his strong suits, and people are blaming him — and not former President Joe Biden — for all of it. While most Republicans love the cruel ICE raids in Democratic-led cities, large majorities of Democrats and independents disapprove, and it's personal to many of them. Most people, too, are well aware that Trump is using law enforcement to target his political enemies."
Americans, Parton adds, also voiced their displeasure with Trump through the massive No Kings Day protests around the U.S. and the "overwhelming victories of Democrats" in off-year elections. November 4 found Democrats enjoying double-digit victories in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Hampshire, and Democratic Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices won by landslides in retention elections.
"In a normal political environment," Parton writes, "off-year elections have limited value in predicting the following year's midterms. But this year, in this abnormal time, something interesting happened. Young people and Latinos who had voted for Trump in 2024 swung back to Democrats in droves, from the big marquee races to local school boards. This comes as a huge relief."
Heather Digby Parton's full Salon article is available at this link.