For years, Donald Trump’s political durability has seemed almost supernatural — a chaotic coalition held together with little more than instinct and “a red MAGA cap.” But a new Politico Poll shows the seams finally pulling apart. And this time, the numbers are too big to shrug off.
The headline finding is blunt: more than a third of Trump’s 2024 voters don’t consider themselves MAGA Republicans. That alone would be noteworthy. But the poll goes further — these non-MAGA voters aren’t just distancing themselves from the label; many are distancing themselves from Trump himself.
They’re more likely to blame him for the economy. More likely to say he holds too much power. More pessimistic about the next few years. In other words, this isn’t mild discomfort — it’s early-stage rejection.
The survey, conducted Nov. 14–17 among 2,098 U.S. adults with a ±2-point margin of error, shows just how odd and fragile Trump’s reelection coalition really was. Fifty-five percent of his voters say they’re MAGA. Thirty-eight percent say they’re not. And that split drives massive differences in how these voters see the country, the economy, and the GOP itself.
Among MAGA voters, 47 percent say the current economy “still belongs fully to Biden.” Among non-MAGA Trump voters? Only 26 percent agree. That’s not a small gap; that’s two groups living in different political realities.
And it gets even sharper in areas Republicans usually struggle with. On health care costs — a place where the White House is currently scrambling to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies — 85 percent of MAGA voters trust Republicans more. But among non-MAGA Trump voters, that drops to 55 percent, with 19 percent trusting Democrats and 27 percent saying they don’t know.
Same story on the broader economy: 88 percent of MAGA voters trust Republicans; only 63 percent of non-MAGA voters say the same, while 28 percent choose neither party or say they don’t know.
Even on affordability — the issue Trump has said “delivered him the election,” and the one deputy chief of staff James Blair says he’ll be “very focused on” — the cracks widen. Non-MAGA Republicans are more worried about the cost of living than MAGA ones: 59 percent to 48 percent.
Other numbers hit just as hard: 65 percent of MAGA voters say Trump used his chance to change the economy; only 46 percent of non-MAGA agree. 52 percent of MAGA voters say their finances improved over five years; just 24 percent of non-MAGA say the same. 73 percent of MAGA voters expect things to improve in the next five years; 57 percent of non-MAGA voters do. 49 percent of MAGA voters think they’re better off than the average American; only 17 percent of non-MAGA agree.
Put all that together and it becomes clear: the Trump base isn’t one movement. It’s two camps sharing a ballot, not a worldview — and one of them is looking for the exit.
We’re already seeing signs in real-world elections. In off-year contests, Latino and young male voters who swung toward Trump in 2024 broke back toward Democrats. And in this poll’s generic ballot test, 92 percent of MAGA voters picked the Republican candidate. Only 62 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters did the same.
There’s something almost bulletproof in the MAGA mindset — a kind of economic optimism that doesn’t budge, even when things look rough. As the poll notes, “Trump’s definition of reality permeates their own.” But that spell doesn’t extend to everyone who voted for him. And that’s the GOP’s growing problem.
If Republicans want Trump voters to remain Republican voters in the midterms, they’ve got less than a years to figure out how to unify two groups that increasingly see the world — and Trump — in very different ways.
