While polling shows that President Trump’s approval rating is at historic lows and more and more voters seem turned off by everything from the war in Iran to his cruel take on immigration to his cratering economy—there’s something curious afoot.
Deep in the numbers, beyond the obvious, it’s clear the problem isn’t with the small number of Blacks or Hispanics who once supported the president. The few Hispanics who supported Trump in 2024 have soured on the GOP, while Republican attacks on voting rights have led to a surge of Black voters supporting Democrats in the South.
Still, the press is too oft fixated on what’s going down in barbershops to gauge why a fraction of Black men voted for Trump, and The New York Times recently took a deep dive into Trump’s cratering approval rating among Hispanics.
But beneath this is a problem bigger than any Black or brown person in a MAGA hat.
White voters.
Despite so many being upset with the GOP’s stewardship over every branch of government, the fight for Congress is still a wee bit too close for comfort. According to NBC News, the swing between the public wanting Democratic control of Congress versus Republican is only 5 percent.
And the margin of error is 3.1 percent.
That’s pretty close considering President Trump currently has 29 percent approval rating to match the GOP-led Congress’ 16 percent approval rating.
While white people who lean Democratic clearly don’t want Trump, things get a little more questionable when you start talking about the white vote in general. White people still make up more than 61 percent of all eligible voters despite declining population numbers. And of those white voters, 54 percent still largely support Republicans compared to the 39 percent who support Democrats, a number that has largely held steady since 2020, according to Pew Research.
That means the GOP isn’t so much afraid of losing their base to Democrats—most conservatives are happy living in bubbles while their immigrant neighbors are being rounded up—they’re just afraid they’ll stay home.
Only 34 percent of Republican voters say they’re closely watching the Midterm races, compared to 42 percent of Democrats.
Hearts and minds aren’t changing. Enthusiasm is.
The mainstream media, mired in an obsession with the small percentages of Black and Latino men who voted for Trump, isn’t paying attention. They scour barbershops and hold virtual race summits, picking at a non-existent scab on a Black community that still votes more than 85 percent Democratic.
And Republicans like to say they’re making inroads with Black voters, but the reality is, they don’t care enough to build on what little they hold.
If they did, they’d actually float some policies that would help Black people, but to them, serving your Black constituents is “woke.”
But white people? They’ve held steady at that 54 percent Republican support. They get treated as settled math rather than the real battleground that population actually is.
Let’s just say, if the Democrats don’t take Congress, it won’t be the fault of the 40 percent of people of color who make up our electorate.
