President Trump’s base has started to wobble.
A new analysis by FiveThirtyEight shows that Trump popularity has fallen most in red states — the ones that voted for him overwhelmingly in the 2016 election and are widely assumed to be propping up his nationwide approval ratings, which are stuck in the 30s.
According to a new, state-by-state average of approval/disapproval ratings just released by Gallup and SurveyMonkey, the gulf between Trump’s margin of electoral victory and his current approval ratings is widest in Wyoming, Oklahoma and Idaho.
In Wyoming, Trump won over Hillary Clinton by 46 percentage points. His net approval rating there is down 26 points. In Oklahoma and Idaho, where his margin was 36 and 32 points, respectively, his net approval is down 24 and 23 percent.
Rounding out the top five are Nebraska and Kentucky, where Trump bested Clinton by 25 and 30 points, respectively, but have seen his approval rating decline 22 points in both states.
“The fact that Trump has lost the greatest number of supporters in red states is perhaps the clearest indication yet that he is losing ground among some form of his base, if you think of his base as those who voted for him in November,” writes FiveThirtyEight.
Perhaps cognizant that they confidently predicted a Hillary Clinton victory last November, the site notes some caveats: “Trump most outperformed his polling in 2016 in red states. Maybe that’s happening again,” it notes. “That said, he also beat his polls in Midwestern states, and he’s holding his own (relatively speaking) there.”
And calculating how much support he’s lost depends on how you define support: Would the people who disapprove of him in polls still vote for him if the election were held tomorrow? “Trump was able to win in 2016 in large part because he was able to win a decent share of the vote among people who held an unfavorable view of him. That group of voters may have been more plentiful in red states,” the site notes. “Perhaps what we’re seeing isn’t a decline in Trump’s support in conservative states, but rather a reflection of its weakness from the start: Red-state voters who pulled the lever for Trump but didn’t like him, still don’t like him.”
