As Donald Trump enters the second year of his second term, he faces a growing exodus of voters who cast their ballot for him in 2024, with some telling the Chicago Tribune that they have been put off by his "cruelty" and "nonsense," and accusing him of "contradicting everything he said he would do."
In a piece published Tuesday, the Tribune spoke to various voters who supported Trump in 2024, but who now say they "regret" their decision in light of his controversial first year back. While Trump's loyal base of MAGA supporters has not shown much indication that it is faltering, the outlet argued, the reactions of these voters were indicative of Trump's "weakening favor" with other parts of his 2024 coalition.
Pablo Payan, who "usually favored Democrats," cast his vote in the last election for Trump for a variety of reasons, looking to support a change in direction for the country: "Less foreign aid. More border security. Lower inflation. Greater economic growth."
“I did vote for Trump. But now I regret it,” Payan said. “He’s contradicting everything he said he would do. And now it’s extremism. And immigration. And racial profiling. And sending money to foreign countries.”
As the Tribune noted, Trump's immigration crackdown "was a repeated complaint from those who backed the president during the election but now have doubts about his leadership." Voters who bought into his claim that only "the worst of the worst" criminals would be targeted are disillusioned as ICE agents appear to target anyone who is not white and round up droves of immigrants with no criminal records.
Payan, a son of Mexican immigrants himself, said that ICE's strategy of "Going door to door, just asking people at the gas stations or at Home Depot," amounted to "racial profiling at its best." Others the outlet spoke to soured on Trump's immigration agenda when it impacted them personally.
"One man from Skokie grew incensed after witnessing Border Patrol agents question U.S. citizens who were working on his property during an immigration enforcement onslaught across the Chicago area on Halloween," the Tribune report explained. "A Navy combat veteran was angered after immigration officials detained his wife — a foreign-born green card holder — at O’Hare International Airport over the summer."
As of the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Trump's approval rating was down to 42 percent, a slight improvement over his lowest rating last year, but still down from the 47 percent he notched at the start of his second term.
“They sold a whole different idea than what’s actually happening. The cruelty and the nonsense that’s going on right now is just wrong,” Jim Brown, a Navy veteran who voted for Trump in 2024, said. “If you watched between the first Trump presidency and now, it’s completely different. We’re trying to bully other countries and do things we shouldn’t be doing.”