They voted for Trump. Most still back him — but not on everything
In Des Moines, Iowa, Lou Nunez, an 83-year-old U.S. Army veteran, has been horrified by Trump's cuts to federal agencies, whipsaw tariff announcements, and crackdowns on protesters.
Terry Alberta, 64, a pilot in southwestern Michigan, supports most of Trump's policies but he thinks some of the slashed federal spending might have to be restored and he dislikes the president's demeanor. "I get really frustrated with him when he starts calling people names and just saying crazy things,' he said.
Although they all helped elect Trump in November, Torres, Nunez and Alberta have very different reactions to his presidency so far. They are among 20 Trump voters interviewed monthly since February about the president's dramatic changes to the United States' government, trade policy and immigration enforcement, among other issues.
Nunez and one of the other 20 voters now regret casting a ballot for the president. Torres and four others say they fully support his administration. But most — like Alberta — fall somewhere in between.
The 20 voters were selected from 429 respondents to a February 2025 Ipsos poll who said they voted for Trump in November and were willing to speak to a reporter. They are not a statistically representative portrait of all Trump voters, but their ages, educational backgrounds, races/ethnicities, locations and voting histories roughly corresponded to those of Trump's overall electorate.
Even monthly check-ins cannot always keep pace with the breakneck news cycle under Trump. Reporters most recently interviewed the group in May, before Trump deployed U.S. service members to Los Angeles and other cities to quell widespread protests against the administration's immigration crackdown and prior to tensions erupting with Iran.
Loretta Torres, a stay at home mom who voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, at her home in Baytown, Texas |
REUTERS
Trump's efforts to tighten border security were most popular among the group. Describing their concerns about the administration, these voters most often cited the economic uncertainty triggered by Trump's federal cuts and tariffs. That tracks with the latest Ipsos-Reuters poll findings, which show Trump polling below his overall approval rating on the economy, and above it on immigration.
Recent polls also show that Americans who helped elect Trump to his second term overwhelmingly like what they see so far. In a six-day Ipsos-Reuters poll that concluded on June 16, 9 out of 10 respondents who said they voted for Trump in November also said they approved of his performance in office so far.
"I like the way he portrays himself as being a strong leader," said Torres. "It makes us look stronger to other countries."
White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement that Trump had delivered on his campaign promises by reducing U.S. border crossings to historic lows and keeping inflation lower than expected.
"The Administration is committed to building on these successes by slashing the waste, fraud, and abuse in our government and leveling the playing field for American industries and workers with more custom-made trade deals," Desai said.
'Anxiety is the buzzword'
Most of the 20 voters interviewed say they now have qualms about some of Trump's most extreme measures.
Brandon Neumeister, 36, a Pennsylvania state corrections worker and former National Guardsman, said he disagreed with a May request by the Department of Homeland Security for 20,000 National Guard members to help detain illegal immigrants. "To deploy troops on American soil in American cities, I think that sends a very severe message,' he said.
Pilot Terry Alberta at the West Michigan Regional Airport, in Holland, Michigan |
REUTERS
Neumeister voted for Trump hoping for lower prices and inflation, and said he knows it will take time for the president's economic policies to yield results. But people close to him have lost jobs as a result of Trump downsizing the federal government, and several friends of his are anxious about losing pensions or health care due to budget cuts at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
"Anxiety is the buzzword for everything right now,' Neumeister said, adding that it was "hard to say' whether he's glad Trump is president.
Federal workforce reductions are also wearing on Robert Billups, 34, an accountant in Washington state currently searching for his next job. He has seen federal positions disappear from job sites, and he frequently gets worried calls from his mother, who is a contractor with the Internal Revenue Service.
"This is more than my mom has ever reached out to me. I feel like it's freaking her out,' he said.
Ethical concerns
Several Trump voters in the group also said they were uneasy about actions by Trump that critics say overstep his presidential authority.
Don Jernigan, 74, a retiree in Virginia Beach, said he likes the outcomes of most of Trump's policies but not the way he sometimes pushes them through, such as his record number of executive orders or his imposition of tariffs on other countries, a power that Jernigan says belongs to Congress. Nor does he like the fact that Trump accepted a jet given to the United States by Qatar, which Jernigan views as an enemy nation. "Trump works off of ideas. He doesn't work off of principles. He has no principles,' Jernigan said.
Overall, however, he thinks Trump is protecting U.S. borders and deterring threats against the nation better than the other candidates for president would have.
Veteran Lou Nunez outside his home in Pleasant Hill, Iowa |
REUTERS
Trump's acceptance of the Qatari jet also struck Amanda Taylor, 51, an insurance firm employee near Savannah, Georgia, as potentially unethical. "It just seems a little like he can do whatever he wants to without repercussion,' she said.
Taylor, who voted for former U.S. President Joe Biden in 2020, says it is too early to tell yet whether Trump is an improvement. She likes Trump's pledges to deport criminals and gang members. But she has been most closely watching economic indicators, especially interest rates, because she and her husband closed on a new house this month.
Changes they hope to see
Among Trump voters with fewer complaints about the president's second term, there are still areas where they hope to see some change.
David Ferguson, 53, hoped the Trump administration would revitalize U.S. manufacturing, and so far he is "pleased with the groundwork' and "at least the direction that they're communicating.'
At the industrial supply company in western Georgia where he works as a mechanical engineer and account manager, Ferguson has seen Trump's tariffs drive up prices on a range of products, from roller bearings to food-processing equipment. He does not expect the prices to fall as quickly as they've risen.
Ferguson would like the administration to offer tax incentives to companies like his that are making it possible for more things to be made in the United States. "It would help encourage businesses that are already domesticating manufacturing and give them some relief from the tariffs, kind of reward their good behavior,' he said.
Several other Trump voters voiced support for a policy that might surprise left-leaning voters: a clearer legal immigration pathway for aspiring Americans who are law-abiding and want to contribute to the U.S. economy.
Gerald Dunn, 66, is a martial-arts instructor in New York's Hudson Valley and "middle-of-the-road' voter who said he is frustrated by extremism in both U.S. political parties. Dunn said he knows people who have tried to enter the United States legally but encountered "horrendous' red tape.
People with skills and stable employment offers could become "assets to the country" instead of liabilities if it were easier for them to immigrate, Dunn said.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, engineer Rich Somora, 61, said he supports Trump's efforts to deport criminals but he also recognizes that immigrants are increasingly doing key jobs that U.S. citizens don't want to do, such as building construction.
"If somebody's contributing, give them a pathway, you know? I got no problem with that,' Somora said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
25 minutes ago
- Japan Times
With federal funds frozen, wealthy U.S. universities capitulate to Washington
As a growing number of the wealthiest U.S. colleges capitulate in their battles with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the strain from lost and frozen federal funding is putting pressure on the remaining holdouts to cut a deal. Universities targeted by Trump's crackdown on diversity programs and other policies he says show a liberal bias are essentially bleeding at the negotiating table after taking on debt, laying off hundreds of staff and slashing spending. As the fall semester approaches, they may be increasingly eager to ink accords that will stanch the flow. Cornell and Northwestern, both of which announced steps to address major budget shortfalls this year after the federal government suspended research funds, are now close to agreements with the White House. Brown, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania reached accords over the past month. But amid those settlements, new universities are being targeted. Most recently, the University of California at Los Angeles and Duke joined Harvard, Northwestern, Princeton and others in losing access to federal grants that are the financial lifeblood of large research institutions. It all adds up to an unprecedented pressure campaign that's roiling the world of higher education, reverberating through faculty, student and alumni groups and clouding the outlook for the type of medical and scientific research that takes place at the colleges. The multitrillion-dollar tax law signed last month also hikes the tax on income from endowments for some of the wealthiest private schools. As the Trump administration gains leverage, colleges' bruised budgets could drive them toward making agreements quicker. "It seems like they want to get deals done now,' said Brendan Cantwell, a professor at Michigan State University who focuses on the political economy of higher education. "It's almost like a dam is broken. I would not be at all surprised if we saw a cascading set of agreements.' The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 2 | Sophie Park / The New York Times Federal funding has been used as a cudgel by the Trump administration, which has criticized what it says is a failure by academic institutions to crack down on antisemitism during campus protests over Israel's war in Gaza. The moves also come amid a broader campaign against diversity efforts and accusations of political bias. The fallout has already started. Northwestern said it would cut more than 400 jobs to save 5% on labor costs, with university officials calling the past few months some of the most difficult in its 174-year history. The Trump administration in April paused $790 million in research funding for the Evanston, Illinois-based school because of claimed potential civil rights violations. At Cornell, leaders in June warned that drastic financial austerity measures were on the table after hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research contracts were terminated or frozen. "The spring semester was unlike anything ever seen in higher education,' they wrote in a letter to students and staff. "We have been using institutional resources to try to plug these funding holes in the short term, but these interim measures are not sustainable.' Late last month, the government froze $108 million in research funding to Duke University, or about 20% of its federal revenue, three Trump administration officials said. Duke is in talks with government officials on a settlement, according to an administration official. Duke's press office didn't provide a comment on the funding loss or the status of government talks. A Duke official, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations, said the school is reconsidering its budget amid the funding loss, but that it hopes an end to the freeze will come soon. Cornell and Northwestern have declined to comment on any settlement talks. On July 23, Columbia University agreed to pay $221 million in a deal that was promptly criticized for infringing on academic freedom at the school. Brown announced a deal on July 30, agreeing to give $50 million over 10 years to workforce development organizations in its home state of Rhode Island in exchange for the reimbursement of at least $50 million in unpaid federal grants. Shortly before reaching the deal, Brown took out a $500 million loan — a sign of how strained the school's finances had become. Brown, the least wealthy of the Ivy League schools with an endowment of $7.2 billion, had previously warned in June of "significant' cost-cutting measures to offset the federal funding. U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on July 30 | REUTERS The Trump administration's higher-education crackdown has exposed just how dependent some of the elite, research-focused universities are on the government. They're essentially "major federal contractors' and stopping the stream would be catastrophic for many of them, according to Cantwell. "Think about Booz Allen or Raytheon,' Cantwell said. "If they said, 'All your federal funding will be frozen for 9 months,' you can imagine how those firms might react.' The Trump administration has dealt a harsher financial blow to Harvard than any other university in its crosshairs, freezing billions of multiyear research grants and contracts. The school estimates that the moves by the administration, as well as the endowment tax increase, will cost about $1 billion annually. Harvard's Kennedy School already cut staff. "The unprecedented challenges we face have led to disruptive changes, painful layoffs, and ongoing uncertainty about the future,' Harvard President Alan M. Garber said in a letter to the campus. Garber has told faculty that a settlement with the government isn't imminent and the university is considering resolving its dispute through the courts, the Harvard Crimson reported Monday. Larry Ladd, who served as Harvard's budget director and now advises schools at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, said he can't criticize any college for coming to a deal with the Trump administration given what's at stake for their campuses. "Schools are likely facing pressure to use endowment and tuition revenue, which are typically used to support students, to support some of their research enterprise instead,' Ladd said. "They don't want to do that because they want to continue to support students. There's that pressure as well.' Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said campus leaders are being put in an "untenable position' and worries that federal funds will continue to be weaponized by the Trump administration, even if schools make deals. "The concern is the more we capitulate through making these agreements, the more the administration will be empowered to continue along these lines,' she said.
Japan Times
3 hours ago
- Japan Times
Trump to sign order creating Olympics task force ahead of 2028 games
U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, an administration official said. The task force, made up of members from Trump's cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation, the official said. It also will "streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media," the official said in an email. The United States will host the Olympics in Los Angeles in three years. Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, has expressed pleasure that his second term will coincide with the Olympics and the 2026 soccer World Cup, which is being held across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. "During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America's bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle in his second term," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Monday. Last month organizers of the Los Angeles games released the first look at the Olympic competition schedule. The city also hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984. "The creation of this task force marks an important step forward in our planning efforts and reflects our shared commitment to delivering not just the biggest, but the greatest Games the world has ever seen in the summer of 2028,' Casey Wasserman, the chair and president of LA28, said in a statement.
Japan Times
4 hours ago
- Japan Times
Trump again threatens India with harsh tariffs over Russian oil purchases
U.S. President Donald Trump again threatened on Monday to raise tariffs on goods from India over its Russian oil purchases, while New Delhi called his attack "unjustified" and vowed to protect its economic interests, deepening the trade rift between the two countries. In a social media post, Trump wrote, "India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits. They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine." "Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA," he added. A spokesperson for India's foreign ministry said in response that India will "take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security." "The targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable," the spokesperson added. Trump has said that from Friday he will impose new sanctions on Russia as well as on countries that buy its energy exports, unless Moscow takes steps to end its 3½ year war with Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no public sign of altering his stance despite the deadline. Over the weekend, two Indian government sources said that India will keep purchasing oil from Russia despite Trump's threats. India has faced pressure from the West to distance itself from Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. New Delhi has resisted, citing its longstanding ties with Russia and economic needs. Trump had already in July announced 25% tariffs on Indian imports, and U.S. officials have cited a range of geopolitical issues standing in the way of a U.S.-India trade accord. Trump has also cast the wider BRICS group of developing nations as hostile to the United States. Those nations have dismissed his accusation, saying the group promotes the interests of its members and of developing countries at large. India is the biggest buyer of seaborne crude from Russia, importing about 1.75 million barrels per day of Russian oil from January to June this year, up 1% from a year ago, according to data provided by trade sources. India began importing oil from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, the Indian spokesperson said, calling it a "necessity compelled by global market situation." The spokesperson also noted the West's, particularly the European Union's, bilateral trade with Russia. "It is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia." Despite the Indian government's defiance, the country's main refiners paused buying Russian oil last week, sources said. Discounts to other suppliers narrowed after Trump threatened hefty tariffs on countries that make any such purchases. Indian government officials denied any policy change. The country's largest refiner, Indian Oil Corp., has bought 7 million barrels of crude from the United States, Canada and the Middle East, four trade sources said on Monday. India also has been frustrated by Trump repeatedly taking credit for an India-Pakistan ceasefire that he announced on social media in May, which halted days of hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbors. The unpredictability of the Trump administration creates a challenge for Delhi, said Richard Rossow, head of the India program at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "India's continued energy and defense purchases from Russia presents a larger challenge, where India does not feel it can predict how the Trump administration will approach Russia from month to month," he said.
