Trump's Fractured Coalition

Executive summary

Trump's coalition is fracturing in real time — and tariffs are the fault line. A new survey of 595 respondents finds that nearly half of people who know a 2024 Trump voter believe that person would not vote for Trump again today, while the president's signature trade policy simultaneously ranks as both the most supported and a leading source of opposition among the same sample.

Four findings stand out. First, the Epstein files are the single most-opposed policy in the study — drawing more disapproval than tariffs, Iran, or deportations — even among respondents who otherwise back Trump's agenda. Second, 44.7% of respondents say a Trump 2024 voter they know would defect, abstain, or go third-party if an election were held tomorrow. Third, tariffs generate a paradox: 23.9% of policy-support selections went to tariffs, yet 16.9% of not-support selections did too — and even self-identified Trump job-performance approvers are more likely to oppose his tariff handling specifically. Fourth, respondents with higher psychological openness scores are measurably less likely to approve of Trump's job performance or support any of his featured policies.

Context

This study was fielded as Trump's second term moved past its early phase and into contested policy territory — a moment when initial executive energy collides with real-world consequences for household budgets, foreign entanglements, and unresolved controversies like the Epstein files. The 595-respondent sample answered eight questions spanning job approval, policy support and opposition, economic performance, voter retention, and open-ended economic impact, giving researchers a layered picture of sentiment rather than a simple thumbs-up/thumbs-down on the president.

The sample skews toward politically engaged respondents — people who have opinions on Venezuelan geopolitics, Iran airstrikes, and trade policy — which matters for interpretation. Results likely reflect a more informed and opinionated slice of the public than a random national sample would capture. That means support figures may understate casual Trump approval and opposition figures may reflect more ideologically committed critics.

Still, the study's value lies not in its raw approval numbers but in the internal architecture of opinion: which specific policies generate split verdicts even among those who broadly like what Trump is doing, and which psychological traits predict where that split falls. The Retrospect analysis layered behavioral correlations on top of the survey responses, identifying personality trait signals — particularly OCEAN Openness and Prism Resilience — that predict policy opposition with statistically meaningful effect sizes.

The backdrop is a national polling environment showing Trump's approval at 35–37% in May 2026, driven by dissatisfaction with grocery prices, housing costs, and energy bills. The Federal Reserve has documented a real, gradual 8.5% price increase on Chinese-origin goods by December 2025 — not a spike, but a slow climb that compounds each month at checkout. That economic context makes the tariff paradox finding especially consequential: it is not just an abstract policy disagreement but a pocketbook grievance playing out in real time.

Conclusion

The picture this study paints is not one of a collapsing coalition but of a coalition under sustained internal stress. Trump retains a core of durable supporters — but even within that core, specific policies are generating friction that loyalty alone isn't smoothing over. Tariffs are the clearest example: they are both a rallying cry and a household cost. The Epstein files are a trust issue that cuts across partisan lines. And the voter retention signal, however indirect, points toward an electorate that is drifting rather than deciding.

Watch three things in the months ahead. First, whether tariff-driven price increases continue their gradual climb — the Federal Reserve's 30% pass-through estimate on Chinese goods was measured through December 2025, and further escalation would widen the gap between Trump's trade rhetoric and kitchen-table reality. Second, whether the Epstein file handling remains a persistent drag or fades as a salience issue; bipartisan 80% majorities demanding transparency are not a number that typically resolves quietly. Third, whether voter regret among Trump's 2024 coalition crystallizes into organized opposition or disperses into abstention — the third-party and no-vote signals in this study suggest the latter is the more likely near-term path, which matters enormously for turnout math in future cycles.