Greenhouse’s analysis draws on a CBS News poll showing that 54% of white voters without a college degree now disapprove of Trump’s performance, up from 45% in February and 32% in February 2025. The erosion reflects growing frustration over what many working-class voters see as unfulfilled campaign promises: Trump pledged on the trail to reduce prices on day one, bring back manufacturing jobs, and avoid new foreign wars.
Instead, Greenhouse wrote, blue-collar Americans face 4.2% inflation, the highest rate in three years, and the number of factory jobs has declined by 68,000 since Trump took office. The war with Iran, which Trump launched, has pushed up gasoline and grocery prices, and tariffs have raised costs on items from furniture and coffee to fresh fruit, the Guardian piece stated.
Peggy Liff, a 57-year-old welder in Ohio who voted three times for Trump, told the Washington Post she was disappointed in the president. “He’s concentrating on other things, like overseas, Iran,” Liff said. “He says he’s doing it for us, but I don’t see where that’s happening.”
Anger over immigration enforcement has also dented support. Greenhouse noted that the administration’s crackdown became less popular after masked agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The analysis cites a Fox News poll in which only 33% of white, blue-collar voters approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, and just 25% approved of his handling of inflation. Meanwhile, an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that 44% of white voters without a college degree said they were more likely to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate this year, up from 30% just before the 2018 midterms.
Republican pollster John McLaughlin, who has long worked for Trump, told the New York Times the trend is dangerous for the GOP. “It’s working-class voters who are not happy with the Republican party, and they may not come out and vote,” McLaughlin said.
Greenhouse added that Trump exacerbated the problem with offhand remarks. With inflation rising, Trump told reporters, “I love the inflation.” A month earlier he said he did not think about Americans’ financial situation because he was focused on the war in Iran.
The analysis also pointed to the broader economic picture: the same week that Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that surging energy prices had erased 18 months of wage gains for the average worker. Greenhouse noted that Trump’s tax cut bill gave more than $1 trillion in breaks to the wealthy while cutting Medicaid and food assistance by over $1 trillion.
“Increasingly clear that Trump and Republicans are doing next to nothing to lift blue-collar Americans,” Greenhouse wrote, arguing that Democrats need to put forward pro-worker ideas such as taxes on billionaires to fund childcare and down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers to capitalize on the disenchantment.