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President Trump has almost always made governing decisions with his MAGA base in mind. If the president’s mindset on always playing to his base does not change soon, Republican hopes for 2026 will take a dive.
I know MAGA diehards want to dismiss the polls as inherently anti-Trump. They can certainly point to a single survey that is. However, over the last month, there have been multiple respected surveys that all show basically the same results. Fox, Reuters, CBS, Quinnipiac, YouGov, Gallup — the list goes on. The president’s support is tumbling among the independent voters who decide elections.
This is not about media prejudice. This is about the MAGA base being out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Americans and importantly, Trump following rather than leading his own base of support.
This has nothing to do with the Epstein files or MAGA’s discontent with how the Trump administration has handled that issue. Conspiracy enthusiasts will never be satisfied.
This has to do with how Trump is dealing with, or ignoring, issues that affect the everyday life of hard working American taxpaying families.
In the first six months of his administration, Trump has pursued policies that have voters asking “Why?”
As hard working families worry about where the economy is headed, Trump has started a trade war and pursued an incoherent and inconsistent policy of tariffs on friendly countries who, eight short months ago, were allies of America. In Upstate New York, you can see vehicles with New York plates bearing bumper stickers that say, “I stand with Canada.”
You can spend a lot of time walking through Walmart stores trying to find someone who can explain why a trade deficit is bad for them. Is it? But those same people can certainly tell you how price inflation on necessities crimps the family budget.
Trump deserves credit for closing the southern border. It took political will, a quality totally lacking in the Biden administration. It is an absolute disgrace that the Biden administration bowed to the far left wing of the Democratic Party and turned a blind eye to thousands breaking into the U.S. Democrats deserved to lose on that issue alone.
That said, Americans clearly have nuanced views on immigration. Happy that the border is closed, Americans have a different view of people who have been in the country, working and paying taxes.
Fresh fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle, clean hotel rooms on the family road trip, knowing grandma is cared for in the nursing home and having enough laborers on construction sites to rebuild our communities following natural disasters all depend on having a large enough workforce to do the job — many in that workforce do not have legal standing.
Americans are united in getting criminals off our streets and out of the country if they are here illegally. But they do not want to see heavily armed ICE officers jumping out of unmarked SUVs and chasing guys merely walking to work across Home Depot parking lots.
The Trump administration needs to get its priorities straight and soon. Arresting people who are paying taxes and obeying laws is not a priority.
Neither is investigating the 2020 or 2016 elections as the president recently suggested while casually accusing one of his recent predecessors of treason, demanding a professional football team change its name or terminating career federal employees because they were in that job when the previous administration was in office.
Recently the Trump White House stooped to arguing with the cartoon characters of South Park.
The bottom line is this. Many of the policy aspects that MAGA wants, especially those that smack of revenge, are out of step with the majority of voters.
Trump’s numbers in survey after survey are troubling and they will stay that way until he is able to drag his MAGA followers into supporting more mainstream issues that improve the quality of life for hard working families.
The president could start with the price of ground beef.
Kevin Igoe is the former deputy chief of staff of the Republican National Committee and former executive director of Maryland Republican Party. He served as chief of staff of the Maryland Department of Budget and Management and was a Reagan White House appointee.
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