Jacobin ran three waves of polling across the first half of 2026, tracking the durability of Donald Trump’s 2024 coalition. The headline: more than a quarter of 2024 Trump voters are now “waverers” — not committed to voting Republican in 2028.
The erosion is class-skewed and accelerating:
- Voters earning under $50K waver at 32% vs 18% for those earning over $100K
- Black Trump voters waver at 40%+ — highest of any group
- White working-class wavering jumped from 18% (Feb) to 24% (July), closing the gap with voters of color
- Biden-to-Trump switchers are the most unreliable: 63% now say they won’t back the GOP in 2028
The catch: fewer than 5% of all 2024 Trump voters say they’d vote Democrat. Most waverers name “unsure” or a third-party candidate.
When asked what comes to mind about the Democratic Party, the top complaint isn’t wokeness. It’s corruption and self-dealing (37% of negative responses), followed by weakness/lack of leadership (12%) and neglect of ordinary people (10%). Only 15% focused on divisive social issues.
The picture that emerges is of a coalition that’s fracturing along class lines without a natural home on the other side. The working-class voters Trump won in 2024 are drifting away, but Democrats haven’t convinced them the party would fight for their interests either. As Jacobin puts it, “whether Trump’s cratering coalition becomes an opening for the progressives or just a growing pool of the disaffected depends on whether Democrats can convince them that the party offers something worth turning out for.”