Trump’s Polls Are Slipping as Non-MAGA Republicans Split From MAGA on the Economy

By Jacob Weindling | September 19, 2025 | 11:51am

Photo by The White House

Economy Polling

Trump’s Polls Are Slipping as Non-MAGA Republicans Split From MAGA on the Economy

All the polls released this month paint a pretty bleak picture for the MAGA cult taking over America. An Economist/YouGov poll taken from September 12th through the 15th has Trump’s favorability rating in uh oh territory for any politician at 39 percent, where you only get below 40 percent because you start losing your own voters in significant numbers, while a poll released today from Washington Post-Ipsos followed the trend that all the other well-respected polls have long established. They found that Trump is 10 points underwater on his handling of “the issue of crime in this country,” and that’s his best issue. Every other figure, on “Immigration, the situation with Israel and Gaza, the economy, and the situation involving Russia and Ukraine” all get progressively worse for him. He’s 30 points underwater on his handling of “Tariffs on imported goods.”

Global Strategy Group’s (GSG) nationwide survey of 1,000 registered voters conducted in early September helps provide some insight into the collapse of that last figure, as well as how the Economist/YouGov poll found his favorability rating in uh oh territory. They separated GOP respondents into Non-MAGA Republicans and MAGA Republicans, and a genuinely shocking split emerged. When asked about the state of the economy today, Non-MAGA Republicans thought it was more poor than good by 16 points, while MAGA Republicans see the economy as good by a 50-point margin. That’s a 66-point difference between Trump voters and Trump cult voters. That is two entirely different universes within the GOP.

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Drilling down further in this GSG survey of registered voters finds the split at the heart of the Republican Party: those with a basic understanding of economics and the nature of empirical reality and people who just believe whatever dear leader tells them. GSG gave respondents two statements and asked them “which statement is closer to how you feel?” The first was “Tariffs will raise costs on consumers, harm U.S. businesses, and weaken the U.S. economy,” and the second was “Tariffs will create jobs, fix our trade deficit, and strengthen the U.S. economy.” By an 18-point margin, Non-MAGA Republicans picked the first, and by a 56-point margin, MAGA Republicans picked the second. That is a 74-point swing in the very nature of economic reality within the Republican Party.

This survey is wild. Every binary poll on the economy is polarized, and you can plot which party’s president is in office by which party feels best about the economy. What makes this GSG survey so bonkers is that this kind of classic partisan split translates down to sects within the Republican Party. The economy is objectively slowing down, sentiment has been at recessionary levels all year, the Fed just cut rates because they said they’re worried about a weakening labor market caused in large part by Trump’s racist immigration policy, and farmers and rural economies are becoming increasingly desperate as Trump’s trade war and the GOP’s cuts to Medicaid begin to decimate their economies. It’s always been known that there is an empirical split in reality between MAGA and everyone else, what this survey suggests is that non-MAGA Republicans are included in everyone else.

An AP-NORC poll taken after Charlie Kirk’s assassination had Trump at 39 percent approval, and it also displayed this dynamic in the GOP. There is enough data now to assert that there is a genuine and growing split within the Republican Party.

It’s a cult. Full stop. There are many people across the country who voted for Trump three times that are currently side-eyeing other Trump voters who are cheering on higher taxes on small businesses. MAGA has no principles other than a libidinal drive to dominate, and non-MAGA Republicans clearly know it even if they don’t consciously know it. That’s how you get really horrific polling on Trump’s tariffs in polls like the one released by Washington Post-Ipsos. Trump’s best issue at -10 establishes something of a baseline of how many people disapprove of this administration, and so the only way that you can get to -30 is with Republicans joining in the revulsion.

Trump’s trade war is an assault on the basic concept of economics that a socialist like me and non-MAGA Republicans can agree on. If the recession that everyone feels in their bones and is starting to hit rural economies spreads (and whether it will is very much in doubt thanks to gargantuan amounts of AI capital expenditure spending and huge government deficits), I think what we’re seeing in Trump’s polling on tariffs is the downside risk to his overall approval rating. Washington Post-Ipsos has him at 43 percent approval, but if tariffs crash the economy, then it’s not unreasonable to think that his 34 percent approval figure on tariffs is where that headline figure could go next. If stagflation is really what our economy is destined for, then the next few years–at least–will be an economic slog, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see his approval dwindle down into the 20s or even the teens if we are gearing up to repeat all the worst mistakes of the gilded 1920s. The gargantuan gulf between non-MAGA Republicans and MAGA provides more than enough room for Trump to slip into truly historic unpopular territory. The kind that would make the depths of Biden’s unpopularity look like 2008 Barack Obama.

Trump is not popular, and he is getting less so every day. Even with Republicans. That’s what makes this enthusiastic elite capitulation to him all the more galling. Jimmy Kimmel was canceled by Disney because they clearly want Trump to establish a fascist state in America that will still approve their mergers, not because they are listening to the market telling them their new king is net -13 unfavorable. The logic our elite capitalists claim to espouse does not comport on to their decisions to choose Trump over their consumer base, and they, like much of the Republican Party, are clearly betting on Democrats never being in power again. Given the shambolic nature of both Trump’s rule and how shockingly spineless and cowardly American elites have proven themselves to be, I wouldn’t bet on this dynamic enduring, as even fascist states need popular support to survive.