If there’s one demographic group that is synonymous with President Donald Trump’s political rise — and his later rebirth — it’s the White voter without a college degree.
American politics is increasingly split by education, with more formally educated voters going for the Democrats and less formally educated voters going for the Republicans. And White voters in the latter group have formed the backbone of Trump’s coalition, with about two-thirds of them voting for him in each of his three presidential runs, according to CNN exit polling.
But as Trump’s approval rating has fallen to new lows, there are increasing signs that his hammerlock on this group is waning.
And it’s looking more like that could damage Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, particularly as this group sours on the president’s stewardship of the economy.
Despite Trump taking 66% or 67% of this group in each of his three campaigns, most recent polls show a majority of non-college-educated White Americans now disapprove of Trump.
That includes a CNN poll (51%), a Fox News poll (51%), an NPR/PBS/Marist College poll (52%), a Pew Research Center poll (52%) and a new CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday (54%).
There are some recent polls that show Trump in better shape among non-college White voters, including a New York Times/Siena College poll on Monday (44% disapproval). But right now, that’s the exception.
The extent to which Trump’s struggles with this group appears to be unprecedented.
CNN polling in his first term occasionally showed Trump’s disapproval rating among non-college Whites trending toward half. But it never reached higher than 47%.
His drop in popularity among this group has also been rather large over the course of the last 15 months. While 63% of this group approved of Trump in a February 2025 CNN poll, that’s now dropped to 49%. Trump has gone from a plus-26 net approval rating to a minus-2 among these Americans.
The CBS polling has shown an even larger drop, from 68% in February of last year all the way down to 46% today.
It can be difficult to boil Trump’s decline among this group down to a few specifics. But it’s clear that the economy is playing a large role.
While exit polls showed just 32% of these non-college White Americans voted for Democrats in 2022 and for Kamala Harris in 2024:
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56% of them say Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country, per the new CNN poll.
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67% in the CNN poll say the Iran war has negatively impacted their financial situation.
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56% in the CNN poll say Trump’s tariffs have had a negative impact on their finances, compared to just 20% who say they’ve had a positive impact.
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60% say Trump’s politics are making the economy worse in the short-term, per the CBS poll.
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41% in the CBS poll say they’ll also make the economy worse over the long-term – more than the 35% who believe they’ll ultimately make the economy better.
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A majority in the CBS poll says Trump cares about their needs and problems either “not much” (13%) or “not at all” (44%).
The immediate political question is, of course, how these numbers will translate into actual votes in the 2026 midterm elections, when Trump is not on the ballot.
It’s unlikely this demographic would favor Democrats, but if the GOP’s support among this group even just dropped below 60%, that would be unprecedented in the Trump era.
Trump has won this demographic by between 34 and 37 points in each election. The GOP won it by 34 points in the 2022 midterms. The party’s worst performance in the Trump era came when it won these voters by 24 points (61%-37%) in the 2018 midterms, when Democrats flipped the House.
Right now, the GOP leads among these voters by an average of just 17 points, according to an average of the so-called generic ballot in recent polls conducted by CNN, Fox, Marist and the New York Times.
Republicans are averaging 55%, while Democrats are averaging 38%.
The general election is more than five months away, which means there’s still time for Trump to claw back some of the support he’s lost among a group that has proven rather loyal to him and the GOP.
But right now, Trump and his party look like they have significant problems with arguably their most important demographic group.
