Since Trump first ran for president a decade ago, White working class and rural voters have been an important base of support, drawn to his vows to bring back manufacturing and crack down on immigration. In 2024, 2 in 3 White working-class voters backed him, according to research group
PRRI's post-election survey. Trump won 69% of the rural vote in 2024, according to
Pew Research Center exit polling.
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CBS News-YouGov poll in May found 54% of White, noncollege voters disapproved of Trump's performance, up from 32% in February 2025. That disapproval hit 49% in a June
NPR/PBS/Marist poll and 51% in an April
Fox News poll. Among rural voters, a June
Reuters/Ipsos poll found 48% disapproved of Trump, up from 34% the month after he returned to office.
"The decline is significant given that White working-class voters were a pretty stable support between 2016 and 2020 for Trump after trending Republican since the early 1990s," said Noam Lupu, a Vanderbilt University political science professor.
The main driver of the discontent is higher prices for necessities like gas and food, pushed up by the Iran war and tariffs, experts said.
Polling shows declining support for President Donald Trump among his white working-class base, but will it hurt Republicans in the midterms?
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