Earlier today, we published “Poll: More Americans find Trump racist, corrupt, and cruel.” The recent survey highlighted in that article and produced by the Economist/YouGov indicates that roughly 30% of Americans still lack strong opinions about Trump. Many of them are likely low-information voters, and in the 2024 election, the vast majority in this demographic broke in Trump’s favor.
Ironically, another survey launched this week adds credence to the aforementioned theory about low-information voters and their strong support of Trump in 2024. Moreover, it also suggests Trump may be losing his handle on this very key demographic.
G. Elliot Morris: “In 2024, the voters who knew the least about politics were some of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters. One pre-election poll found Americans who didn’t consume any news at all said they’d vote for him over Kamala Harris by a 20-point margin, 60% to 40%.”
“Today, the president’s support among low-knowledge voters has cratered to just 43%, according to a new analysis of data from our January Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll. The share of 2024 voters who now disapprove of the president is well over 55%.”
“According to our poll, low-knowledge voters backed Trump by a net margin of 11 points in 2024. Now, however, the same low-knowledge voters say they disapprove of the president by 13 points—a 25-point shift away from the president.”
Perhaps Trump has become less popular with low‑information voters because they are feeling the effects of grocery prices and health costs and don’t have a strong ideological loyalty to MAGA to anchor their support.
Folks with less political knowledge have weaker ideological frameworks, so their opinions move more with real‑world conditions.
They were easier for Trump to win over in 2024 when they were angry at the status quo—and [today] easier to push away once Trump became the status quo and failed to meet their (often unrealistic) expectations.
Incumbency hurts when you overpromise to low‑info voters.
Trump’s 2024 campaign made “magical” claims about what he could do as president; high‑knowledge voters were more skeptical, but low‑knowledge voters probably took most of it at face value.
