Men are cooling on Donald Trump after making up a significant chunk of the president’s 2024 voting bloc.
According to a new poll by CBS/YouGov, Trump's approval rating is tanking with men during his second term. It found that 47 percent of men approve of Trump's job, and 53 percent do not.
Last October — just before Trump's second electoral victory — a similar CBS/YouGov poll found that 54 percent of men supported Trump and 64 percent said they thought he would be a strong leader.
The drop overall reflects a broader disapproval with Trump's second term; DecisionDeskHQ's polling averages showed that the president's overall approval rating was down by about 12 points since January, a drop from 56 percent then to 44 percent this week.
According to the new CBS/YouGov poll, 47 percent of men said Trump was focusing "too much" on deportations, while 33 percent said he was showing the "right amount" of focus. In another metric, 65 percent of men said Trump has not done enough to lower prices, and only 29 percent said they felt he had.
On February 7, Trump had a 60 percent approval rating with men, but his numbers began to slip in the months that followed, according to the poll. By the end of the month, his favorability had dropped to 56 percent, and by April 11 — just a week after he unveiled his tariff plan — men's approval of the president fell to 49 percent.
Trump won big with men in 2024. According to Pew Research, men favored Trump by 12 points in 2024. Men under 50 split their votes almost evenly between former Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump. In 2020, men under 50 backed former President Joe Biden over Trump by 10 points.
According to the CBS/YouGov polling data, the big issues driving down Trump's approval with men are his performance on the economy, his seeming inability to curb inflation, and his intense focus on immigration issues.
By mid-April, Trump's approval rating among men on the economy dropped to minus 10 points, his approval regarding inflation fell to minus 20, and his immigration approval — one of his strongest areas among men — dropped to just plus six points,
The poll found that 49 percent of men believe that the economy is getting worse, and 65 percent said that Trump wasn't doing enough to lower prices for goods and services.
Another 60 percent said they believe Trump is focusing too much on tariffs, and 57 percent believe his policies are directly increasing the cost of their groceries.
They aren't wrong about their grocery bills; Consumer Price Index data shows that annual inflation rose by 2.7 percent in June, up from 2.4 percent in May.
They're also not wrong about Trump's tariffs, according to Yale's Budget Lab. Americans are currently facing an average tariff rate of 18.7 percent, which is the highest it has been since 1933.
The three key issues driving down Trump's approval rating were the major issues that attracted men to Trump in the first place, according to the poll. That could spell trouble for Republicans come the midterm elections if they do not adjust their focus and messaging before the election.
Trump's dipping approval comes at a difficult time for him, as even some stalwart supporters among his voter base and within his party are questioning him over his handling of the alleged "Epstein client list."
The president promised to be transparent about what the government knew of disgraced New York financier and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — a man who had a long and well-documented friendship with Trump.
After U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told the public she had the so-called client list on her desk, the administration backtracked and insisted no such file existed, and confirming previous rulings that Epstein died by suicide in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial.
Trump has reacted with dismissal and annoyance toward Republicans — and his own voters — who have asked him questions about his administration's position on the Epstein documents.
Since then, Trump has faced questions and criticism from his voting base and within the conservative cultural sphere that helped sell his vision for America to the public — especially men.
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