The Polling on Elon Musk Is a Warning for Republicans

Politico

12 hours ago

Donald Trump says he is surprised and disappointed with Elon Musk over the messy public meltdown of their partnership. He also should be wary.
It's not Musk's ownership of one of the most influential social media platforms that should give the president pause. Nor is it the billionaire tech mogul's status as the world's richest man, with a recent history of bankrolling Republican causes.
It's Musk's stratospheric popularity with the Republican base, as revealed in the polls.
Musk is not about to overtake Trump himself as the dominant figure in the party, to be clear. But the jilted former 'special government employee' is uniquely suited to become a chaos agent who could terrorize the GOP — potentially wreaking havoc on Trump's legislative agenda and the party's midterm election plans.
Musk's tenure leading the Department of Government Efficiency captured the GOP's imagination, even if it ended ingloriously. While Democrats and independents quickly soured on Musk's leadership, Republicans are still enthralled.
In the most recent Economist/YouGov Poll, 76 percent of Republicans viewed Musk favorably, compared to just 18 percent who viewed him unfavorably. A late April New York Times/Siena College poll placed his favorability rating among Republicans at 77 percent.
Despite the furor over his slashing budgetary cuts, the scrutiny for DOGE's secretive approach and the criticism for failing to deliver on his initial promises of $1 or $2 trillion in savings, Musk's popularity with the GOP base has stayed fairly consistent.
That may change after Musk's scorched earth break-up with Trump, but the odds aren't great. Musk's standing within the GOP has remained remarkably high since the beginning of the Trump administration — over 70 percent in most polls. That makes him far more popular than House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and almost everyone else in the party.
The only national Republicans more popular than Musk? Trump and his vice president, JD Vance. Trump's approval rating within the party is 87 percent, according to the Economist/YouGov poll. Vance's favorability rating is 80 percent.
In part, that's because the grassroots have been deep believers in Musk's DOGE mission from the start. Nearly 90 percent of the party supports cutting the size of government. A similar share believes DOGE has been effective at cutting government spending, reports a recent Harvard-Harris poll. (Democrats and independents are far more skeptical of DOGE's accomplishments, and of Musk himself. The Economist/YouGov poll reports just 15 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of independents view him favorably).
The Trump-era GOP is a party where staffers feel free to publicly attack principals, where elected officials regularly attack each other for deviations from MAGA orthodoxy and where the unofficial mantra is Trump's 'fight, fight, fight.' Yet for days after Musk's initial broadsides against the 'big, beautiful bill,' no one — not even Trump, who's known for nuking even the mildest of critics — laid a glove on Musk.
The silence was a tacit acknowledgement of a new apex predator in the political and media ecosystem, a Godzilla to Trump's King Kong.
The stature accorded by Musk's DOGE portfolio, its alignment with traditional Republican values surrounding government spending and budget deficit reduction, his limitless wealth and social media megaphone make him a uniquely dangerous rival, not just for Trump but for the party as a whole. He is part William Hearst and part Howard Hughes, not so much a threat to win the party's affection from Trump as he is a potential bomb that could blow up the party's plans.
Musk boasts his own base of support that exists outside traditional partisan boundaries, particularly marked by the parasocial relationship young men have with him. That makes him a danger to the fragile coalition Republicans relied on in 2024.
The president still retains his party's loyalty and deep affection. But Musk knows MAGA's pressure points. He's been in the room where MAGA happened, on stage at the rallies, present for the Cabinet dog-and-pony shows.
The old axiom about never picking fights with those who buy ink by the barrel applies here: It's a bad idea to feud with a tycoon who can not only deplatform you, but trash you to his 220 million followers.
There are limits to Musk's reach — his bruising, polarizing run atop DOGE made him a pariah on the left and a political liability in a general election context. But his ability to dominate the attention economy makes him uniquely suited to upend Trump's agenda on Capitol Hill and Republican efforts to hold on to Congress in 2026.
Like Trump, Musk learned fast about politics. When he embarked on his crusade to sink the sweeping tax-cut package, he recognized the precise language to employ to cut through the noise and provoke a reaction from the GOP base — 'a disgusting abomination,' he called it, '[a] massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill.'
Musk also knew exactly how to trigger the president. He picked at the impeachment scab, suggested Trump couldn't have won the White House without his help and predicted Trump's tariffs will cause a recession. Musk went straight for the jugular by suggesting the president's name appears in records of the investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; of course, it's already public that Trump and others have been referenced in court documents related to the case and Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing. But Musk fueled the GOP base's penchant for conspiracy theories by claiming records 'have not been made public.'
It's a page ripped straight out of Trump's playbook, timed to perfection just as MAGA adherents are growing restless with the Justice Department over its failure to deliver evidence of 'deep state' involvement in one of the leading conspiracies animating the far right.
Musk also managed to roll a grenade into the Capitol, where he's already undermined GOP congressional leadership by blasting them by name, and emboldened hardliners who were likely to be steamrolled. His potential for mischief remains considerable even in the event of a personal truce with Trump since the megabill, if it passes the Senate, still must make it back through the House.
If it seems like the GOP cavalry has been slow to aid Trump so far, that's because Musk strikes fear into officeholders who can easily envision him funding primary challenges and hounding them on social media. And it's not just the individual electeds who have cause for concern. Musk on Thursday floated the idea of creating a new political party 'that actually represents the 80% in the middle' in an online X poll.
In less than 24 hours, more than 5 million votes had been cast.