A group of Donald Trump supporters. Reuters/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump's most ardent supporters are now abandoning him, according to Politico's "Playbook."
The "Front Row Joes" are so named because they fight to make sure they're in the front row of all Trump rallies. They try to get to as many rallies as possible, like following a favorite singer to their concerts.
Playbook explained that these supporters "once represented unbreakable, unconditional, unprecedented devotion." They were part of the 30 percent of voters that Trump could always rely on to keep his poll numbers juiced. But these front-row supporters are done.
Trisha Hope blasted Trump as “a fraud and liar" when she spoke to Playbook.
She joined the "Front Row Joes" in 2018 and even published a book of Trump's social media posts called Just the Tweets. It helped pay for her travel to all of the rallies across the country in an RV she bought. She gave up her apartment in Texas for the tiny home.
She recalled that during Trump's first impeachment she spent weeks walking the halls of Capitol Hill defending him.
“I went to every single senator's office as well as Republican congressmen,” Hope said. “I did everything I could for him.”
Now, those days are over, she told Politico reporters. “If we do lose the midterms and he is impeached again, I will be walking the halls of Congress in support of that impeachment."
Her anger comes from the July 8, 2025 Cabinet meeting when a reporter asked then Attorney General Pam Bondi about the handling of the investigation files about Jeffrey Epstein. Hope watched as Trump snapped, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years.”
“It was like a dagger in my heart,” Hope said. “It was like a light switch went on and a veil lifted, and I saw him for who he was, and I have not been able to unsee it since.”
When Trump went to war with Iran, she said that she felt vindicated in her anger over the Epstein files. Every time Trump makes another claim about Iran, it makes things worse.
“He’s said the war is over 600 different times. He tells us they don't have a military, they don’t have a navy. They’re still blowing up things. It’s just all lies," she lamented.
Rick Frazier is in the same boat. With over 100 trump rallies under his belt, he's been a Front Row Joe as well. In fact, he's dedicated time to create content for the group's social media.
When he spoke to Playbook, he bashed the president, saying, “he can’t be trusted."
“Epstein crimes and feeding the industrial military complex … those are big nos for me,” Frazier said when chatting with reporters. “He promoted himself as a no-war president. That didn’t work out.”
Now he simply feels like throwing up his hands on politics as a whole, he told Playbook.
“I’m to the point of not going to the polls in November,” he said.
They both recognize that they're the few among the dedicated to abandon the president. Frazier said that probably 95 percent of the Front Row Joes are still supportive.
The problem, the report noted, is that Hope is a Texas voter and Frazier is in Ohio. They are in two states that will be critical for Republican in keeping a U.S. Senate majority.