August 10th, 2018

Report finds few Trump voters are disillusioned with his presidency

Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 have shown enduring support for him in 2018.

There have been stories of Donald Trump voters expressing regret over having voted for him in the presidential election of 2016, but according to a recent Pew Research Center report, those stories are few and far between.

The report states that “an overwhelming majority of those who said they had voted for him had ‘warm’ feelings for him. By this spring, more than a year into Trump’s presidency, the feelings of these same Trump voters had changed very little.”

The report is based on surveys conducted by Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. The Center tracked views of Trump among the same groups of Americans in March 2018 and at three points in 2016, including in November shortly after the election.

In March, 82 percent of those who reported voting for Trump – verified through voting records – said they felt “warmly” toward Trump, with 62 percent saying they had “very warm” feelings toward him.

The views of these same Trump voters had been quite similar in November 2016: At that time, 87 percent had warm feelings toward him, including 63 percent who had very warm feelings.

While most Trump voters continued to support him, those who reported voting for Hillary Clinton grew to have even more negative views of the president.

This March, 93 percent of verified voters who had backed Clinton in the 2016 election gave Trump a cold rating, with 88 percent giving him a very cold rating. Only 3 percent of those who voted for Clinton felt at all warmly toward Trump. In fact, a majority of Clinton voters, 65 percent, gave Trump the coldest possible (0 on the 0-100 scale).

A significant amount of Americans who did not vote in the 2016 election despite being eligible to do so, might make a difference in the upcoming midterm elections or even in the 2020 presidential election if they decide to vote. Four-in-ten Americans who were eligible to vote did not do so in 2016. Compared with validated voters, nonvoters were more likely to be younger, less educated, less affluent and nonwhite. And nonvoters were much more Democratic.

This Pew Research Center report is a glimpse into the minds of 2016 election voters, further broken down by race, gender and education.

Trump, U.S. politics