May 20, 2026, 3:01 a.m. ET
If President Donald Trump‘s approval rating is sinking into dangerous territory − and it is − how does he manage to keep vanquishing Republican critics and imposing his will on a compliant Congress?
Call it the political dichotomy of the 47th president: Millions of the voters who helped elect him in 2024 now disapprove of the job he’s doing in office, a warning of weakness. But the guts of his base remain unshaken, the most solid of any president in decades, a source of strength.
Just ask Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.
The seven-term congressman lost the Republican nomination for an eighth term May 19 in the most expensive House primary in history. After Massie crossed Trump on issues from war to taxes to the Jeffrey Epstein files, the president helped recruit challenger Ed Gallrein. Gallrein won.
“Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie … must be thrown out of office, ASAP!” Trump had urged on Truth Social. Two days later, Republican voters in the Bluegrass State complied.
In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, opposed by Trump for defending the state’s 2020 election results, finished third in his bid for the Republican nomination for governor.
Raffensperger and Massie were the latest in a string of Republican officeholders with longer political resumes than Trump who have found themselves facing involuntary retirement after getting on his wrong side.
In Louisiana’s primary three days earlier, another Trump target, two-term Sen. Bill Cassidy, failed to even make the Republican runoff. The primary field was led by Rep. Julia Letlow, who won Trump’s endorsement, and state Treasurer John Fleming, who emphasized his fealty to the president.
It was the first time since 2012 that a senator who had been previously elected was defeated in a primary.
In Indiana, at least five of seven state senators who had defied Trump’s demands to redraw congressional maps lost nomination battles earlier in May.
Yet Trump is undeniably in political trouble these days, with his aggregate approval rating dropping below 40% for the first time in his second term, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter − a red alert for Republicans on the ballot in November. After all, a president’s approval rating is the single most reliable predictor of how his party’s candidates will fare in midterm elections.
The views of a half-dozen voter groups help explain how Trump can simultaneously exert unprecedented control of the GOP while also leading their ranks to likely setbacks, perhaps even catastrophic ones, in six months.
Where Trump has lost ground
Trump’s support among Gen Z voters is collapsing.
In the 2024 election, Trump narrowed the traditional Democratic advantage among voters 18 to 29. His 43% share in CNN exit polls reflected a significant improvement for Republicans.
Now he has a net disapproval among younger voters of 38 percentage points, according to the Cook Report’s PollTracker. Just 29% approve and 67% disapprove, a stunning swing fueled by concern about the economy and opposition to the war with Iran.
Hispanics are another voter group that Trump made significant inroads with in 2024, supported by 46%. Today, they disapprove of the job he’s doing by nearly 2-1, 64% to 33%.
The swing among Latino voters, which is also tied to economic concerns, could be crucial this fall in races in Texas, Florida and elsewhere.
And many independent voters, the folks who typically decide competitive elections, have also had second thoughts. The president won 46% of their votes in 2024.
Now he’s under water among independents by a yawning 41 points, 68%-27%.
Where Trump has held steady
But Republicans continue to overwhelmingly embrace Trump.
His approval rating with members of his own party now averages 81%. That’s lower than the 94% who voted for him in 2024, but it is still a healthy number and higher than either Barack Obama or George W. Bush were rated by their partisans at this point in their presidencies.
That foundation has allowed Trump to sway GOP primaries and usually quelch unrest on Capitol Hill, although concern about the Iran war is testing that.
Trump also continues to hold steady support among seniors. Voters 65 and older now divide 45% approve-44% disapprove. That’s close to their nearly even split in the 2024 election, when 50% voted for Trump and 49% for Democrat Kamala Harris.
White Protestant evangelicals remain among Trump’s most loyal supporters.
In 2024, more than eight in 10 voted for him. His approval rating in that demographic in an NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll in April was 64%-34% – lower but still a nearly 2-1 divide to his advantage. Among those who said they voted for him in 2024, 84% approved of the job he was doing.
At the Rededicate 250 celebration on May 17, a daylong prayer fest honoring the approaching 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the National Mall was scattered with MAGA caps and declarations of allegiance to the president. Trump and his top lieutenants addressed the crowd by video and in person.
“We just have to keep showing up,” said Shelley Tufts, 53, who runs a home for children in Opelika, Alabama, and came to join like-minded people in prayer. “Before the election we had lost just about every one of our freedoms.” But Trump has “done a good job of turning things around.”
Her support is unwavering.
