The Myth of the Regretful Trump Voter
Don’t fall for the “anecdata.”
With the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second term in the rearview mirror, a new crop of media stories is starting to emerge: the tale of the regretful Trump voter.
Consider:
CBS: “Michigan swing voters express regrets over voting for Trump”
MSNBC: “One month into Trump’s second term, many feel buyer’s remorse”
MSNBC again, the next month: “Seven weeks in, more Trump voters start to feel buyer’s remorse”
The Root: “15 Examples of Regretful MAGA Folks Who Messed Around and Found Out After Voting for Trump”
Business Insider: “Why these federal workers regret voting for Trump”
I have no doubt that all of those individual stories are true. I’m sure CNN really did find someone who once called herself a “MAGA junkie” and now regrets her vote for Trump. I’m sure BuzzFeed did find 16 Trump supporters who are Already Questioning Their Decision.
But it’s easy to see all those individual stories and make an assumption about the broader narrative they’re trying to paint: Wow, it looks like a lot of Trump voters sure would do things differently now that he’s actually been re-elected!
However, there isn’t much quantitative evidence to support that idea.
The best example of this comes from a poll that was released yesterday by Emerson College, which asked the question directly: Knowing what you now know, if you could go back in time to the 2024 Election, would you vote for Kamala Harris, vote for Donald Trump, vote for someone else, or not vote?
To level-set, here’s what respondents to the Emerson poll said about who they voted for in the actual 2024 election:
Trump: 42.4%
Harris: 41.2%
Other: 1.6%
No one: 14.9%
And here’s how the same respondents answered the question about how they would vote in a 2024 do-over:
Trump: 47.5%
Harris: 46.7%
Other: 4.5%
No one: 1.3%
If a nationwide referendum were to be held on Trump’s presidency after 100 days, the results would shake out about the same as they did in November, the poll suggests.
93.6% of Trump voters would vote for him again. 93.1% of Harris voters would vote for her again. Just 2.6% of Trump voters and 1.7% of Harris voters would switch their votes to the opposite party.
An April poll by YouGov and the University of Massachusetts Amherst found the same thing. 2% of Trump voters and 1% of Harris voters said they regretted their vote and “would choose differently today” if they could. (An additional 4% of Trump voters said they had “mixed feelings” about their vote, and another 1% said they “might choose differently today.”)
Notably, in that poll, only 1% of Trump voters said they “would rather not have voted” at all if they could do 2024 over again. A much higher segment of Harris voters — 14% — said they would sit out the election if they could turn back time.
A recent Washington Post/ABC/Ipsos poll has been the only one to find a segment of regretful Trump voters (6%) potentially large enough to swing the election. But the same survey also found that 3% of Harris voters regret their vote, which means the regrets on both sides almost come out to a wash.
And, still, the poll found that almost all 2024 voters have been unmoved by the events of the last 100 days: 94% of Trump voters and 97% of Harris voters said they stood by their decisions.
I’m shining a spotlight on these numbers this morning because I think they offer an important reminder of why it’s important to take anecdotes in the press with a grain of salt.
77 million people voted for Donald Trump last fall. That means, even if only 2% of them regret their vote, that still comes out to more than 1.5 million people — an ample number for journalists at every outlet to find and interview.
And it’s worth listening to them: they have an interesting story to tell! But, at the same time, it’s important not to take those anecdotes as data. That’s why polling evidence is helpful, giving us a sample not just of the interesting voters who might be picked out by news stories, but of Trump voters overall.
When we look at the polls, we see that these regretful Trump voters represent a tiny minority in the vast ocean of Trump supporters, and that news stories highlighting them shouldn’t be taken as evidence of a substantial change in views from November to May.
One last thing to note, though: Trump voters don’t necessarily have to regret their vote to be feeling mixed thoughts about his administration. In the UMass Amherst/YouGov poll, 19% of Trump voters said they “still feel confident” about their vote but they “have some concerns” now that he’s been in office.
That is a substantial group of voters, and they are an important group to watch.
In the Post/ABC/Ipsos poll, 89% of Trump voters said they approve of his presidency so far — but if you break that down further, only 55% said they “strongly” approve while 34% said they “somewhat” approve. (10% said they disapproved.)
13% of Trump voters said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy. 14% disapproved of how Trump has handled relations with other countries. 20% disapproved of his handling of tariffs. And 27% said they disapproved of how he handled “the recent turmoil in the stock market.”
In addition, 22% of his voters said Trump was “going too far” in “trying to expand the power of the presidency,” although much smaller segments said the same when asked about specific actions (deportations, laying off federal workers, targeting political opponents, unwinding DEI, etc).
During the 2022 midterms, political analyst Amy Walter wrote about the “meh” voters — those who told pollsters they “somewhat approved” of Joe Biden. Walter noted that these voters swung towards Democrats during the midterms, which is unusual for a president in his second year in office. Ultimately, of course, they did not swing towards Democrats in the 2024 election, once Biden had aged, Harris had emerged, and Trump returned to the ballot.
Once again, the “meh” voters are the ones to watch now. The most interesting Trump voters aren’t those who he’s lost fully, who make up a smaller group than some recent news stories would have you believe. It’s those who are wavering, expressing their concerns on certain issues (tariffs) but not others (immigration). Whether Republicans are able to keep these voters engaged and supportive in the 2026 midterms — and in future presidential elections when Trump will no longer be running — is the important question for the next few years.
More news to know
AP: The Senate votes down resolution to block Trump’s global tariffs amid economic turmoil
NPR: Ukraine and the U.S. have signed a long-stalled minerals deal
CNN: Marco Rubio and Salvadoran president have been in touch about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, sources say
Politico: The GOP plan to fund Trump’s agenda is running into a major roadblock: Trump
Axios: Elon Musk opens up: Admits DOGE has fallen short of expectations
WSJ: Tesla Board Opened Search for a CEO to Succeed Elon Musk
WaPo: RFK Jr. will order placebo testing for new vaccines, alarming health experts
Houston Chronicle: John Cornyn trailing Senate primary challenger Ken Paxton, says new internal polls
ABC: ‘I am not afraid of you,’ Columbia student says of Trump after release from ICE
WSJ: Trump Wants a New Air Force One So Badly He’s Refurbishing a Qatari Plane
Colorado Sun: Yadira Caraveo’s former aides say they were mistreated, traumatized by Colorado congresswoman
The day ahead
President Trump will participate in a National Day of Prayer Event, receive his intelligence briefing, attend Tilman Fertitta’s swearing-in as U.S. ambassador to Italy, travel to the University of Alabama to deliver a commencement address, and then travel to Mar-a-Lago.
The Senate will vote on a pair of resolutions to undo Biden-era regulations on energy.
The House will vote on a pair of resolutions to undo Biden-era regulations on endangered species and California’s vehicle emission standards.
The Supreme Court has nothing on its schedule.
Lutnick just told Americans that the outcome of these tariff negotioations will be.......... Dad, son and grandson will be working in the same factories making all the cheap stuff for generations.... Meanwhile the EU is focused on advancing Education for their people... Follow a Fool and you will be a Fool.
People’s egos will not allow them to admit they were wrong even when presented with countering facts, but even that doesn’t matter because MAGA is still being misinformed by the same lying sources and they still lack the critical thinking skills to process truth. So, looking for the regretful Trump supporters is a futile exercise.