Tuesday, July 21, 2026, episode of the podcast The Excerpt: Some voters who helped bring President Donald Trump back to power are questioning whether his policies are actually improving their lives. USA TODAY national correspondent Chris Kenning looks at growing concerns about affordability, health care and tariffs and how those frustrations could affect Republican turnout in the midterm elections.
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Dana Taylor:
President Donald Trump has long relied on white working-class and rural voters as one of the most reliable parts of his political base, but new polls and voter interviews suggest some of that support may be waning as dissatisfaction with the economy, health care, immigration and the cost of living begins to surface. So what if some of President Trump’s core voters are dissatisfied but not necessarily ready to become Democrats? Hello. Welcome to this excerpt from USA TODAY. I’m Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, July 21, 2026. USA TODAY national correspondent Chris Kenning reported on that question and now joins The Excerpt. Chris, thank you so much for being here.
Chris Kenning:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it
Dana Taylor:
As I pointed out, Trump has long relied on white working-class and rural voters. What suggests his position with some voters is weakening?
Chris Kenning:
It’s been a really important group for a long time. And in 2024, two in three white working-class voters supported him, according to exit polls. And according to some of the same exit polls, he won nearly 70% of the local vote that year. Some were drawn to his pledge to kind of reboot the post-pandemic economy by reviving industries like manufacturing and coal and cracking down on illegal immigration. However, the results are interesting in recent months as a series of polls from a variety of groups have actually shown that disapproval is starting to rise, with a slight majority disapproving among those groups. And while much of that appears to be due to economic concerns, a May CBS poll found that 54% of non-college white voters disapproved of Trump’s performance, up from 32% in February 2025. Among rural voters, a June Reuters poll found 48% disapproved of Trump, up from 34% after he took office. So this is a big change that we’ve seen.
Dana Taylor:
I want to delve into the dissatisfaction that is rooted in the economy. When you talked to voters, what were they actually feeling on a day-to-day basis?
Chris Kenning:
These are real issues close to the hearts of the voters I spoke to and some polls that make it clear where the issues are headed. Some people opposed some of President Trump’s policies that weren’t related to the economy, but that was a big problem. These are very familiar issues and drive much of the affordability debate. It is clear that rising gasoline prices due to the Iran war are a big part of the problem. They see it every day. They see rising food prices every day at the grocery store. Additionally, in addition to rising housing costs, the costs of medical insurance and long-term care are also rising. In other words, they feel the impact close to home.
Dana Taylor:
One of the people you spoke to was Ashton Reed. He’s a 22-year-old from Missouri who supported Trump in 2024 but is now not at all happy with him. What struck you most about the way he talked about that change?
Chris Kenning:
Yes, he was funny. He worked for an HVAC company, but was laid off and was currently unemployed and looking for another job. But he would have voted for Trump in 2024 for the same reasons. He blamed Biden for the economy suffering massive inflation during the coronavirus era and still struggling with it. And he saw Trump as a businessman genuinely trying to turn things around. That was a widely held view in his area of Missouri. But since then, like everyone else, he has seen prices rise, especially since the war in Iran and soaring oil prices are among the drivers of gas prices. And he told me that this is the kind of war that President Trump also vowed not to engage in.
Very disappointed. And he was bothered by other things as well, like I said, kind of heavy-handed ICE enforcement, but what’s really impacting the family is the cost. As he said, he priced an Affordable Care Act plan for his wife, and that plan was going up because the pandemic-era subsidies weren’t renewed, so costs actually went up. It was just out of reach. So that was another thing that he’s frustrated with President Trump at this point.
Dana Taylor:
So I’m wondering, Chris, how common is that sentiment among the voters you meet?
Chris Kenning:
A Fox News poll conducted in April found that 38% of white non-college respondents supported his handling of inflation. So the majority don’t feel that way. That’s important. The White House press secretary did say that once the war ends, gas prices will fall and inflation will fall. And the Treasury Department has recently tried to push back on some of those concerns by emphasizing how some of the recently enacted tax cuts will affect working families. But the overall picture is that these affordability issues are looming as the midterm elections approach.
Dana Taylor:
Your story also connects to Eastern Kentucky. Denver Feltner says health care is his top priority right now. How are Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the cost of health care part of this political grievance?
Chris Kenning:
Well, it’s interesting for Mr. Feltner because he lives in a congressional district in eastern Kentucky, the Appalachian region, which has struggled economically for years since coal went into decline not too long ago. And it’s also a district where 44% of residents rely on Medicaid. And this district is also a very red and Republican district, but the Big Beautiful bill that we saw passed included pretty significant cuts to Medicaid, a lot of requirements like work requirements and things that were expected to kick people off the rolls. On top of that, ACA subsidies expired at the end of 2025. So he’s one of those who has medical issues. He also has five children. He said he works two jobs and is not happy that his insurance premiums have doubled on top of other expenses such as groceries. Therefore, when thinking about the next election, whether he can afford medical care will be a big issue for him.
Dana Taylor:
You also spoke to Bob Ward. He’s a Minnesota farmer struggling with low crop prices and high costs, but he still thinks Trump is on the right track. Please tell me about him.
Chris Kenning:
Yeah. Bob, like other soybean farmers, experienced the effects of these tariffs firsthand. But like you said, he still thinks Trump is on the right path. He grows about 1,700 acres of corn and soybeans in a corner of Minnesota. And he voted for Trump out of concern that inputs like fuel, seeds and fertilizers cost more and crops won’t yield as much as he had hoped. Tariffs began when President Trump took office, and this type of trade war with China drastically reduced purchases of soybeans, which make up the majority of sales in the state. And it hurt a lot of people. Since then, agreements have been made for additional purchases, some of which are also in South America, where they were not previously made. As a result, they are currently facing challenges such as low prices, and the cost of fuel and fertilizer is rising as oil and other supplies are no longer passing through the Gulf due to the Iran war.
So he said there are farmers who are now in the red. But, as you mentioned, he said he believed the war was necessary to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the regime. And he said we’ll have to see how this plays out. He doesn’t know how the midterm elections will turn out. Trump is clearly not on the ballot, but they don’t blame him for some of the struggles they are currently facing.
Dana Taylor:
Chris, it’s important to note here that dissatisfaction with Trump does not automatically mean that these voters are ready to become Democrats. You spoke to a political scientist at Vanderbilt who says party affiliation is unstable and voter behavior usually changes slowly. So if some of these voters are dissatisfied, what will happen to them politically? So what are the bigger medium-term risks for Republicans? Is it defection, low voter turnout, or something else?
Chris Kenning:
Well, it’s common for the president’s party to lose seats in midterm elections. During President Trump’s first term, Republicans lost 41 seats in the House, but I think they retained the Senate. But in 2018, working-class voters still supported President Trump’s management of the economy by a much wider margin than they do now. So, it remains to be seen how that will play out, but some polls show that more people in this group say they would consider voting Democratic, which is still less than half, but an increase from the 2018 midterm elections. So we saw a change. But I think some of the experts I talked to, like you mentioned about stickiness, don’t necessarily believe that a lot of people who have historically voted Republican will suddenly vote Democratic. It could simply be that people are staying home, which could hurt Republicans’ efforts to maintain their majority.
Dana Taylor:
Looking ahead, what does this tell us about whether this is a temporary economic grievance or whether there are real and lasting rifts in the Trump administration heading into the midterm elections?
Chris Kenning:
Yes, this is interesting. Because I think what some of these experts were seeing was that the movement of white working-class and rural voters from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party has been going on ever since the ’90s. I mean, this is something that has happened over time, and we don’t know if the polls would change if gas prices went down or things changed, but a lot of other things might not be going the way people expected. For example, manufacturing employment has actually declined slightly since President Trump took office. So I think it remains to be seen in terms of how voters will balance their political identity with their economic concerns. However, I think the results will be revealed in the midterm exam.
Dana Taylor:
It’s really interesting to hear the voices of American voters through your reporting. Chris Kenning is a national correspondent for USA TODAY. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time.
Chris Kenning:
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it
Dana Taylor:
Thank you for your attention. I’m Dana Taylor. Our stories come from USA TODAY journalists across the country. We’ll be back tomorrow to take a closer look at the big stories.
