According to a poll published by Reuters, Trump is losing support from his rural base.
Outside the Morgan County fair in McConnelsville, in a rural swath of Ohio that fervently backed U.S. President Donald Trump in last year’s election, ticket seller John Wilson quietly counts off a handful of disappointments with the man he helped elect.
The 70-year-old retired banker said he is unhappy with infighting and turnover in the White House. He does not like Trump’s penchant for traveling to his personal golf resorts. He wishes the president would do more to fix the healthcare system, and he worries that Trump might back down from his promise to force illegal immigrants out of the country.
“Every president makes mistakes,” Wilson said. “But if you add one on top of one, on top of another one, on top of another, there’s just a limit.”
Trump, who inspired millions of supporters last year in places like Morgan County, has been losing his grip on rural America.
According to the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll, the Republican president’s popularity is eroding in small towns and rural communities where 15 percent of the country’s population lives. The poll of more than 15,000 adults in “non-metro” areas shows that they are now as likely to disapprove of Trump as they are to approve of him.
I hate to throw cold water on your hopes that this slippage means the tide is finally turning and that rural America is waking up to the fact that they got conned by this cheap vulgarian. Given the choice between him and a Democrat, they’d vote for him again. After all, he promised that he’d get rid of the illegals and make America great again, and when you’re given the choice between abstract possibilities and admitting out loud that you got taken, the abstracts will win every time.
Say what you will about Trump, he knows how to keep his base. Find a kneeling black football player, pick on a Puerto Rican mayor, start a Twitter war with a moderate Republican; it’s all about the distraction and the visceral. The base will back him every time.
