Know when to walk away

To follow up on Paul’s post about how while the Surf-and-Turf and Airport Scotch Too Exponsive voters might be sticking with Trump the Gas Too Exponsive voters aren’t, and to honor the recently deceased Don Schlitz, the big Pew Foundation survey is out and it provides empirical confirmation that the marginal voters who put Trump over the top in 2024 know when to run:

Within Trump’s 2024 coalition, nine-in-ten adults or more across demographic groups approved of his job performance in the weeks after he took office. But Trump’s younger and Hispanic voters are now substantially less likely than his older and White voters to approve of his job performance:

• 57% of Trump voters under 35 and 70% of those ages 35 to 49 now approve, compared with 87% of his voters ages 50 and older.
• 66% of Hispanic Trump voters approve of the president, compared with 81% of White Trump voters. Trump’s approval rating among his Hispanic voters has declined 27 points since early 2025, compared with a 14-point drop among his White voters.

Trump’s approval rating has also declined substantially among those who did not vote in 2024: 26% of these U.S. adults now approve of his job performance, down from 30% in January and 45% in early 2025.

Nearly all 2024 Kamala Harris voters (98%) disapprove of Trump’s job performance, little changed over the course of his term.

There’s some other interesting stuff here, including voters not liking Trump’s cult-of-personality actions. But returning to the delusional base, how about this:

A majority of Americans (56%) say the overall level of ethics and honesty in the federal government has fallen over the course of Trump’s term.

Far fewer (19%) say it has risen, while about a quarter (24%) say it has stayed about the same.

In the first two weeks of Trump’s second term, 47% expected the level of ethics and honesty to fall, while 31% thought it would rise.

Views among Republicans

Shortly after Trump took office in January 2025, 59% of Republicans said they expected the level of ethics would rise with Trump as president, while 11% said it would fall.

Today, 37% of Republicans and Republican leaners say the level of ethics in government has risen with Trump as president, while 23% say it has fallen.

Views among Democrats

Democrats and Democratic leaners overwhelmingly say the level of ethics and honesty has fallen over Trump’s term (88%). In the wake of Trump’s 2025 inauguration, 82% said they expected this to happen.

Let me repeat this: “59% of Republicans said they expected the level of ethics would rise with Trump as president, while 11% said it would fall.” This has admittedly come somewhat back to the bounds of earth but this is what we’re dealing with.