Swing voters split over Trump as 2026 midterms approach

Only two of 11 Swing Shift voters told NPR they were happy with Trump’s second term

The Georgia accounts made the division concrete. Gerald and Wally both voted for Trump in 2024, helping him in Georgia, but their 2026 choices ran in opposite directions: Gerald backed Republicans, while Wally backed Democrats. Their contrast illustrates the challenges facing Trump and his party in the midterms. Gerald and Wally are among the swing voters in swing states whom NPR has checked in with regularly as part of its long-term Swing Shift project.

NPR has agreed not to use their full names so they can speak freely about politics, without fear of personal or professional repercussions. All of the project’s voters cast a presidential ballot for Trump over the past decade, and most voted for him just two years ago. The midterms will come nearly two years into Trump’s second term, giving voters a chance to weigh in on the state of the country.

Gerald was still all in, giving Trump an A+++ and casting his ballot on the first day of early voting in Georgia for Republican Mike Collins for Senate and Rick Jackson for governor. “Red all the way down the ballot,” Gerald said. “There was one instance where there was nothing but a Democrat running unopposed and I preferred to write in my own name in, because I refuse to give a Democrat my vote.”

Wally represented what NPR called a fraying of the Trump coalition. Asked about Trump since March, he had consistently given him an F. “I just don’t think that he’s an effective leader and I thought that as Americans we’d do so much better,” Wally said. Inflation was his top issue influencing his vote, though he said he had little hope that any one politician or any one election could fix it. Wally voted early in Georgia for Democratic Senate incumbent Jon Ossoff and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, a vote against Trump and MAGA as much as anything else. He gave both Democrats and Republicans in Congress an F. “I think these people are essentially stealing money from the American public and we need wholesale change in this midterm, and we also need a big change for the next presidential election,” Wally said.

Across the project, NPR said the voters’ assessments of Trump’s performance on the job roughly aligned with national polls in the week before Election Day. Most voters were unhappy or underwhelmed, often citing the war in Iran and high energy prices as major concerns. Only two of the 11 said they were happy with Trump’s second term. Asked for one word or phrase to describe how they were feeling, the voters used “messy,” “divided,” “disarray” and “scary.”

Pennsylvania’s Swing Shift voters were divided. Three of the four had voted for Trump in 2024, but three said they planned to vote for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was seeking re-election. NPR reported that Pennsylvania swing voters said Trump had not delivered on his promise to lower prices. Theresa, who had voted for former President Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024, said she would give Trump a C-. “Because he said the war was only going to be a few weeks. And we knew that was not the case,” Theresa said. She added, “I might get in there and change my mind again. But at this point, it is going to be with the politician that we’re familiar with, which is Shapiro.”

The Philadelphia accounts added both split-ticket choice and party dissatisfaction. In the northern suburbs of Philadelphia, Stephen lives in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District, one of the country’s most competitive House districts. Incumbent Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick had survived a Democratic wave before, and Stephen said he would still re-elect him. “I would still re-elect Brian Fitzpatrick but everything else, I would say maybe Democratic or…maybe do a write in,” Stephen said. At the top of the ticket, though, Stephen was voting for Shapiro.

Only John from Philadelphia said he had voted for the Republican candidate for governor. He said the country felt like it was “teetering” and that he was not happy with either party. John follows the news closely and sees where the political tides are headed. “I think there will be a lot of investigations, a lot of impeachment talk and a lot of gridlock in Washington,” John said of a possible Democratic win in the midterms. “And I don’t know if we can afford that right now. So my word to describe the state of the country is ‘anxious.’”

The Nevada accounts showed movement in opposite directions. Lee from Nevada, one of the voters happy with Trump, still voiced concerns about the war with Iran. He gave Trump’s performance in office this term an A-. “Because the war in Iran is taking kind of long,” Lee said. When NPR first spoke with him, Lee was out of work; he now has a new job and said his outlook on the economy had improved. He said he had gotten even more Republican since the last election and more suspicious of Democrats. Meanwhile, Quintero, a Biden-to-Trump voter also from Nevada, told NPR he was swinging back to Democrats in the 2026 midterms.

Taken together, the accounts present a challenge for both parties. NPR said Republicans faced a problem because the Trump 2024 base was not supplying reliable Republican votes. Democrats received mixed signals: Lee had become more Republican and more suspicious of Democrats; Quintero was swinging back to Democrats; John was unhappy with either party; and Gerald, in the one contest where only a Democrat was unopposed, wrote in his own name instead of voting for that Democrat. Trump was not on the midterm ballot, but NPR described the election as a referendum on the president and his policies. House, Senate and governor races gave voters a way to weigh in on his presidency and policies.