'I feel betrayed': Last straw has young Trump supporters vowing to sit out midterms
President Donald Trump's younger supporters are already suffering from buyer's remorse.
The 79-year-old president enjoyed stronger-than-expected support from men between 18 and 29 to win re-election in 2024, but the Washington Post conducted a focus group outside Charlotte, North Carolina, that found many of those voters regret their choice just over a year into his second term.
“I feel betrayed,” said Joshua Byers, a 26-year-old document clerk. “I don’t know why we are fighting [in Iran] if we have never been attacked. I just don’t understand why.”
Focus group participants told the Post they believed Trump would lower prices and boost the working class, but prices remain high and those voters feel like the president is too focused on international conflict and his immigration crackdown.
“We are stepping into World War III,” said James Wiest, a 23-year-old arcade technician. “We just get closer and closer every year.”
A recent Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll found 70 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds disapprove of Trump's job performance, compared to 29 percent who approve, and younger Trump backers are far less enthusiastic about taking part in November's midterms than those who supported Kamala Harris.
“I don’t really want to vote anymore,” Byers said. “I’m really starting to just think it just won’t matter ... I don’t want to feel responsible for taking a vote and feeling misled, or misjudged, or making a wrong move.”
Lilly Burrow, a 23-year-old teacher who voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, told the focus group she initially supported the Iran military operation because she believed it would dislodge the regime, but she now believes the U.S. is “doing Israel’s dirty work.”
“It does change how I feel about Trump,” Burrow said. “He said there would be no new wars, and he said that gas would be below $3 a gallon. … I am not happy with him right now.”
Wiest, who's a Republican, said Trump's focus on his own personal grievances had demoralized him and made him unlikely to vote this fall.
“I agree with his idea of making America great again, but the way he is going about ... it’s not who I thought would be running this country,” Wiest said. “He is really focusing on stuff that pertains to him, that he is mad about, and he does not care about what we are mad about.”
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