Republicans Are Feeling the Summer Time Blues
The American right’s views of the U.S. economy deteriorated significantly over the past month.
Survey results released by YouGov and the Economist on Tuesday showed that only 43 percent of Trump voters describe the economy as good or excellent, down from 51 percent a month ago. Most of that decline has come from people who had described the state of the economy as good moving into the group that describes the economy as “only fair.”
We can see similar movements in the other ways YouGov slices up the electorate. The share of self-identified conservatives who take a positive view of the economy fell to 45 percent from 51 percent. The share of MAGA supporters with positive views declined from 63 percent to 53 percent. Among Republicans, the positive views fell from 51 percent to 44 percent.
A lot of consumer sentiment polls can be discounted because they are warped by partisanship and under-sampling of Republicans and Trump supporters. And the YouGov poll arguably does under-sample Republicans. But that does not explain the negative direction of the poll numbers among Republicans, Trump voters, conservatives, and MAGA supporters.
When you breakdown polling results into smaller categories, the results tend to become less accurate because the sample size is smaller. But the co-movement of views across the categories of people on the right suggests that this is picking up something real.
Hope for the Future Is Fading
Americans on the right are also less optimistic about the direction of the economy. Just 33 percent of Trump voters say the economy is getting better, with 35 percent saying it is staying the same, and 26 percent saying it is getting worse. A month ago, 41 percent said it was getting better, 34 percent said it was staying the same, and 24 percent said it was getting worse. The share saying they don’t know how the economy is developing rose from two percent to six percent.
The share of conservatives saying the economy is improving fell from 40 percent to 32 percent. The share of MAGA supporters dropped to 42 percent from 51 percent. The share of Republicans declined from 40 percent to 32 percent.
We’ve talked about this problem in the past. If Republicans and the Trump administration cannot obtain healthy margins of approval on the economy among Americans on the right, they have little chance of persuading less politically committed voters to embrace their policies and candidates. These declines should be setting off alarm bells in the White House and inside the GOP.
And it’s not just the YouGov poll. The latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey does not cover August and the July reading was actually slightly more positive than June. But the longer-term trend is troubling. Back in February, the index for Republicans hit 97.1, nearly tying the October 2025 high for this Trump term. Now it is down to 88.2. The current situation index fell from 92.1 in February to 82.1 in July. The expectations index fell from 100.3 to 92.8.
And our friends at Fox News show a similar direction of travel. Polling released on June 17 showed 50 percent of Republicans rated the state of the economy as good or excellent. The poll released July 22 had that share down to 44 percent.
Republicans are still much more optimistic about the direction of the economy than Democrats or independents. But deteriorating optimism on the right will make it much less likely that the Republicans can inspire confidence in their policies among middle-of-the-road or independent voters. When you cannot get the majority of people who tell pollsters they are MAGA supporters to say they think the economy is headed in the right direction in August, that foreshadows a tough midterm election in November.
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