For four years now, pollsters and pundits alike have wondered if there was anything that could possibly lead those who voted for and still support President Donald Trump to abandon him. Trump’s heralded base has been steadfast in their support for him despite his many scandals, missteps, and even impeachment.
But it appears the fabled Trump base is splintering and extremely unhappy with the way he’s handled the coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed over 50,00 Americans.
A poll from Navigator Research shows that 40 percent of Trump voters believe he hasn’t taken the COVID-19 crisis seriously enough, especially in the initial stages of the national emergency. That 40 percent figure is an increase of 17 percent in a just a week’s time, suggesting that the usually reliable support Trump has among those who normally support him is quickly evaporating.
But perhaps even more troubling for the president is the fact that only about 46 percent of the public voted for him in the first place, as he lost to Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million total ballots. So if 40 percent of that 46 percent is now unhappy with Trump’s job performance, that means he’s hovering near the 30 percent mark on a good day, and he hasn’t had any good days since the virus began ravaging the country. No matter how you slice it, no one has ever won a presidential election with just 30 percent of the vote.
There’s other bad news for Trump, too, and that’s his poll standing among self-identified independents, 66 percent of whom say the president was too slow in response to the COVID-19 threat. Four years ago, independent voters were the main margin of victory for Trump in key battleground states such as Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. If he loses even two of those states in this November’s election, he’s done.
The Navigator Research survey also has Trump’s overall job approval rating back to 47 percent, with 52 percent disapproving of his job performance.
When he was confronted with the greatest challenge of his presidency, Donald Trump dropped the ball. That failure is magnified daily as the death toll rises and more Americans realize they cannot trust this president to protect them in a life or death emergency.
There’s still a long way to November, but right now Trump appears to be in big trouble with the American electorate, including the very voters who propelled him to victory in 2016.