Over 4 years of Wisconsin polling, Trump's popularity has declined with parts of his base
Former president Donald Trump has seen his popularity decline among most segments of the Wisconsin electorate since he was defeated for re-election nearly four years ago.
That includes big parts of his own political base, such as Republicans and rural men.
It also includes Democratic-leaning groups that view him even more negatively in 2024 than they did in 2020, such as suburban women, college grads, young voters and non-religious voters, a polling analysis shows.
But Trump’s popularity ratings in this state have also improved among a handful of groups, such as voters of color and rural women.
And overall, he has closed the popularity gap with President Joe Biden that existed in 2020. In their first contest, Trump’s “negatives” were significantly higher than Biden’s. That is no longer true. Both men have lost popularity since the last election, but Biden has lost more, leaving them with almost identical — and poor — polling numbers in Wisconsin.
In a separate column, I looked at how Biden’s popularity in Wisconsin this year compares to the fall of 2020, when he narrowly defeated Trump here.
This column focuses on Trump’s popularity in the state, and how it has changed among different kinds of voters.
To get a sense of where the greatest shifts in Trump’s standing have occurred in Wisconsin, Marquette Law School pollster Charles Franklin and I looked at polling trends since 2020 across many political, demographic and geographic segments of the electorate.
We measured the popularity of both men based on “net favorability”: the percentage of registered voters who view them favorably minus the share who view them unfavorably. (If 45% are favorable and 50% are unfavorable, that’s a rating of “minus 5”).
To get meaningful samples of smaller groups of voters, we pooled multiple surveys. Trump’s popularity in the fall of 2020 is based on three Marquette polls from September and October of that year. His “current” popularity is based on Marquette’s three most recent surveys taken over the past six months.
Overall, Trump’s net favorability among registered voters in Wisconsin has dropped from minus 11 to minus 18 between these two time periods. Biden’s decline has been larger (from plus 1 to minus 17), erasing the Democrat’s 2020 advantage in popularity.
Marquette’s polling shows that some of Trump’s biggest declines have come from parts of his political and demographic base.
For example, his rating among white men has gone from plus 8 to minus 14, a drop of 22 points.
His rating among self-identified Republicans has gone from plus 71 to plus 51, a drop of 20 points.
His biggest decline among any group we measured is with a segment of the electorate that has been very favorable to Trump: rural men, who make up about 19% of the state’s registered voters. His rating with this group has dropped from plus 29 in 2020 to plus 2 in the more recent polling, a drop of 27 points.
There are some parallels in the Trump and Biden polling trends. Both have suffered some big declines in popularity among groups that supported them at the time of the 2020 election, especially among voters of their own party.
Biden’s declines have been sharpest among some fairly competitive segments of the electorate — such a working-class women and suburbanites. Trump’s declines have been a little more concentrated in his demographic and political base. That includes self-identified Republicans, rural men, and white non-college men, groups that overlap with each other a good deal.
Trump’s slippage with Republican-leaning groups is consistent with a pattern we’ve seen in the GOP primaries, where even after Trump wrapped up the nomination, a persistent minority of 10% to 20% of Republican primary voters has continued to cast ballots for his defeated rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
GOP voters are no longer as uniformly favorable to Trump as they were during his presidency.
A big question for the fall is whether the softness in Trump’s Republican base translates into depressed GOP turnout for Trump or into some 2020 Trump voters switching to Biden or a third-party choice.
By the same token, will Trump’s improved ratings among voters of color — especially Hispanic voters — translate into small but vital inroads with voters who backed Biden in 2020?
These popularity ratings could change, of course. The campaign has more than five months to go.
And measuring the candidates’ popularity is not the same as measuring vote choice. Trump has improved his ratings with some groups that are generally pro-Biden, and his ratings have declined among segments of the electorate that are generally pro-Trump. On top of all that, the two men have negative or declining ratings with some of the same groups.
ANALYSIS: For Joe Biden, a steep dip in popularity has erased an advantage over Donald Trump
Gauging Donald Trump's popularity across key voter groups
Here is a look at changes in Trump’s popularity in Wisconsin since the fall of 2020 across several broad categories that pollsters routinely track:
Gender. Trump is much more popular with men than women, but his erosion in popularity has come almost entirely from male voters, not female voters. His overall favorability rating among men in Wisconsin has slipped from plus 4 to minus 12 since the 2020 election. Some of his biggest declines among male voters are among demographic groups we think of as being pretty “Trumpy”: rural men (from plus 29 to plus 2) and white men without college degrees (from plus 15 to minus 5). But Trump’s ratings have also sagged among white college grads of both sexes — less favorable groups for him. His favorability rating with white college men has gone from minus 5 to minus 28.
Ideology. Trump’s image has grown worse among liberals since 2020. But among conservatives, he remains almost as popular as he was. And his image among moderates is slightly less negative (minus 39) than it was four years ago (minus 43).
Community type. The former president’s standing has declined the most among suburban voters (from minus 5 to minus 18) but changed very little among rural voters and urban voters.
Region. Trump’s biggest declines have occurred in the “outer” Milwaukee media market (the southeastern Wisconsin counties outside metro Milwaukee), followed by the Green Bay media market and the “WOW counties” of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. In these three suburban counties that border Milwaukee, the GOP has been consistently losing ground in the Trump Era. Trump’s rating in the Republican-leaning WOW counties has dropped from plus 7 in 2020 to neutral in the recent polling (48% favorable, 48% unfavorable). Meanwhile, his rating in the very blue city of Milwaukee is not quite as bad now (minus 42) as it was in 2020 (minus 52).
Age. Trump has lost the most ground among voters under 30, where his popularity rating has gone from minus 28 to minus 43.
Religion. Trump’s standing has improved slightly since 2020 among mainline Protestants as well as born-again Protestants. This last group of voters is one of the most pro-Trump in the state, giving him a plus 22 rating. By contrast, non-religious voters have grown even more negative toward Trump (from minus 43 to minus 62).
Race and ethnicity. Trump has lost ground since the last election among whites, who make up more than 84 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin. But his ratings have improved among nonwhite voters, where his image is now a lot less negative (minus 18) than it was at the time of the last election (minus 43). Because voters of color make up a small share of the vote in Wisconsin, it is hard to get reliably large samples of black and Hispanic voters. Even combining three Marquette surveys in 2020 and three in 2023-24, those samples are still quite small (from 88 to 133 voters). But with that qualifier in mind, Blacks and Hispanics are the two demographic groups we measured where Trump’s image has improved the most in the past four years. This is consistent with national polls showing smaller Biden margins against Trump with these voters.
Partisanship. Trump’s popularity ratings are virtually unchanged among Democrats and independents, but they’ve declined significantly among Republican voters, from plus 71 to plus 51. He is still quite popular in his own party, but not as popular as he was during his presidency.
When you step back from all these numbers, you can glean some patterns.
As you might expect, Trump’s image has grown more negative with some groups that have long disliked him, such as young voters and non-religious voters and suburban women.
But many of his biggest declines have come from groups that viewed him favorably in 2020, such as rural men and non-college white men.
In gender terms, Trump’s decrease in popularity in Wisconsin has come entirely from men.
In partisan terms, it has come entirely from Republicans.
In education terms, it has come mostly from college grads.
And in racial terms, it has come entirely from white voters.
In effect, the gender and racial gaps over Trump have gotten a little smaller, and the education gap over Trump has gotten larger.
What does all this mean for the battle for Wisconsin this fall?
Because this is a rematch of the same candidates who ran in 2020, we’re unlikely to see huge changes in demographic or regional voting patterns in the state.
While there have been big shifts in popularity for both men among different groups of voters, the shifts in how these groups vote will probably be a lot smaller.
But this is a state so closely contested that even small changes in voting patterns can make a crucial difference.
And one place to look for those changes is among segments of the electorate where Biden and Trump have either gained or lost popularity since the last election.
Craig Gilbert provides Wisconsin political analysis as a fellow with Marquette University Law School's Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. Prior to the fellowship, Gilbert reported on politics for 35 years at the Journal Sentinel, the last 25 in its Washington Bureau. His column continues that independent reporting tradition and goes through the established Journal Sentinel editing process.
Follow him on Twitter: @Wisvoter.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Donald Trump sees polling declines with parts of his Wisconsin base
