'Completely betrayed: Trump voters slam 'out of control' president

Women wearing MAGA hats attend the annual "March for Life" in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 23, 2026. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz

A focus group made up of voters who flipped from Joe Biden in 2020 to Donald Trump in 2024 are now voicing harsh criticism of the president they elected.

The Bulwark's Sam Stein reported Tuesday that the focus group it conducted targeted eight specific Biden-to-Trump voters from red, blue and purple states, saying they "serve as a weather vane for the public perception of the president’s second term." The voters were surveyed after federal agents' fatal shooting of 37 year-old U.S. citizen Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota last weekend. The voters were identified only by their first name, their age and their home state.

57 year-old Florida-based Trump voter Ramiro said he felt like Trump was intentionally distracting Americans from the Epstein files, citing the film "Wag the Dog" as an example. He added that Trump was "out of hand" after the killings of Pretti and Renee Good (another Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen) and that his relentless obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize was "ridiculous."

28 year-old California resident and 2024 Trump voter Evelin told The Bulwark she was "all for the ICE" but that the administration's heavy-handed tactics against families and immigrant workers were a bridge too far. She also agreed with calls to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 41 year-old New Mexico Trump voter Stacey called Trump's second term "horrible" so far.

"I just think this whole ICE thing is getting out of control," Stacey said. "... It’s just really bad. And the cost of living is crazy, like literally, if you have two working people, you’re still struggling, you can’t make it, you’re barely getting by. And I was hoping that whenever Trump—I saw him before he was, like: ‘Gas prices were going down, grocery prices were going down.’ Like, what happened to that? Like, he promised that, and I don’t know, none of that is happening."

Trump voter Rabia, who is a 42 year-old North Carolina resident, described Trump's second term as "chaos and craziness." She lamented that "the whole country's in a state of confusion" given the rapid shifts from tariffs to Greenland to Minnesota. She also disliked how Trump routinely insults other Americans.

"He talks about some classes, some people, like, I mean, you’re our president, you can’t talk like this. You can’t talk to people like this," she said.

55 year-old Rex, from California, even voted for Trump at the cost of relationships with family and friends. He conceded that while Trump had "redpilled" him with promises to "take down the deep state," Trump's second term felt like a string of broken promises.

"[Trump] had me all excited for a lot of these things,” Rex said. “But with Trump, you know, I just felt like he was the biggest rug-pull in history. You know, I felt completely betrayed.”

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