Updated July 21, 2026, 3:25 p.m. ET
On the Tuesday, July 21, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: Some of the voters who helped return President Donald Trump to office are now questioning whether his policies are actually improving their lives. USA TODAY National Correspondent Chris Kenning examines growing concerns about affordability, health coverage and tariffs, and what that discontent could mean for Republican turnout in the midterms.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
President Donald Trump has long counted on white working-class and rural voters as one of the most reliable parts of his political base, but new polling and voter interviews suggest some of that support may be softening, with frustrations over the economy, healthcare, immigration, and the cost of living starting to surface. So what happens when some of Trump’s key voters are unhappy, but not necessarily ready to become Democrats? Hello and welcome to USA TODAY’s The Excerpt. I’m Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. USA TODAY National Correspondent Chris Kenning reported on that question and he joins The Excerpt now. Chris, thank you so much for being here.
Chris Kenning:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Dana Taylor:
As I noted, Trump has long relied on white working-class and rural voters. What did you find that suggests his standing with some of those voters is weakening?
Chris Kenning:
That has been a really important group for a long time. And in 2024, two out of three white working-class voters backed him according to some exit polling. And he also won nearly 70% of the rural vote that year according to some of that same exit polling. Some people were drawn to vows to kind of reboot the economy post-COVID through bringing back manufacturing and industries like coal and cracking down on illegal immigration. But it’s been interesting because there’s been a series of polling from a lot of different organizations in recent months that has really shown that disapproval has started to rise among those groups, including reaching some slight majorities. And most of that seems to be driven by economic concerns, but you had a CBS poll in May that found 54% of white non-college voters disapproved of his performance, and that was up from 32% in February of 2025. Among rural voters, you had a June Reuters poll that found 48% disapproved of Trump, and that was up from 34% after he took office. So it’s a significant shift that we’ve seen.
Dana Taylor:
I want to drill down on the dissatisfaction that’s rooted in the economy. When you talked to voters, what were they actually feeling day-to-day?
Chris Kenning:
The voters that I spoke with, and some of the polls have teased out where the issues kind of landed for them, but these are real pocketbook issues from the people I talked to. Some people had disagreements with some of Trump’s policies not related to economics, but that was a big one. And these are things that hit close to home and are driving a lot of this affordability debate. Obviously rising gas prices because of the war in Iran have been a very big part of the issue. They see that every day. Higher food prices, they see that every day in the grocery store. And then there’s also, that comes on top of housing costs have been going up, the cost of medical insurance and care is going up. So they’re feeling that impact close to home.
Dana Taylor:
One of the people you spoke with was Ashton Reed. He’s a 22-year-old in Missouri who backed Trump in 2024, and now he’s not happy with him at all. What struck you the most about how he talks about that change?
Chris Kenning:
Yeah, he was an interesting guy. He had worked at an HVAC company and was currently out of work because he’d been laid off, looking for another job. But he’d voted for Trump in 2024, drawn for some of the same reasons. He thought that it was Biden’s fault that the economy had suffered a lot of inflation during the COVID era and was still kind of struggling with that. And he saw Trump as a businessman who’s really going to turn things around. That was a widely held view in his part of Missouri. But since then he’s just like everyone else, he’s seen the prices rise and especially because one of the drivers of the gas prices is war in Iran and the rising oil prices. And he had told me that this was the kind of war that Trump had also sort of vowed to stay out of.
So disappointed with that. And he was bothered by other, like I say, other things like kind of aggressive ICE enforcement, but it’s the costs that really are affecting the family. Like he mentioned, he priced an Affordable Care Act plan for his wife and it had gone up because the pandemic era subsidies were not renewed and so the costs have really gone up. That was going to be out of reach. So that was another thing that made him not happy with Trump at this time.
Dana Taylor:
And I’m wondering, Chris, how common is that sentiment among the voters you encountered?
Chris Kenning:
A Fox News poll in April found that 38% of white non-college respondents approved of his handling of inflation. So a majority are not feeling that way. So that’s significant. A White House spokesman did tell us that gas prices will go down when the war concludes and inflation will drop. And the Treasury Department has recently sought to push back against some of these concerns with highlighting how some of the tax cuts that were enacted impact working families. But overall, it’s a sign that these affordability issues are kind of looming as the midterms get closer.
Dana Taylor:
Your story also takes us to Eastern Kentucky where Denver Feltner says that healthcare is now a major priority for him. How are Medicaid, ACA subsidies and the cost of health coverage becoming part of this political discontent?
Chris Kenning:
Yeah, it’s interesting for Mr. Feltner because he lives in a congressional district in Eastern Kentucky that’s an Appalachian region that has kind of struggled economically over the years since coal declined a while back. And it’s a district where 44% of residents rely on Medicaid. And it’s also very red and Republican district, but from the Big Beautiful Bill that we saw passed included a pretty hefty cut to Medicaid, a lot of requirements like work requirements and things that are expected to push people off the rolls. And in addition to that, you had the ACA subsidies expire at the end of 2025. And so he’s one of those people who has medical issues. He’s also got five kids. He works two jobs and he said he saw his premiums double and he’s not happy about that on top of other expenses like grocery bills. So when he thinks about the upcoming election, the access to medical care that he can afford is a big one for him.
Dana Taylor:
You also spoke with Bob Ward, that’s a Minnesota farmer who’s dealing with low crop prices and high cost, but still thinks Trump is on the right path. Tell me about him.
Chris Kenning:
Yeah. Bob has really firsthand experienced the impact of some of these tariffs like other soybean farmers. But like you said, he still thinks Trump’s on the right track. He farms about 1700 acres of corn and soybeans in his corner of Minnesota. And he voted for Trump because of concerns about the high costs of inputs like fuel, and seed, and fertilizer and the crops weren’t getting as much as he’d have liked. Once Trump was in office, the tariff started and this kind of trade war with China really cut into their soybean purchases, which huge part of their sales in the state. And so that hurt a lot of people. Since then, there’s been an agreement to buy more, but some of those purchases are now being made in South America, where they weren’t before. So right now they’re dealing with challenges like low prices and the cost of fuel and fertilizer have also gone up because of the war in Iran with the oil and other things not getting through the Gulf.
So he said there’s farmers that are in the red right now. But as you mentioned, he said he believes the war was necessary to keep nuclear weapons out of the regime’s hands. And he kind of said we have to see how this plays out. He’s not sure what the midterms are going to bring. Trump’s obviously not on the ballot, but he doesn’t blame Trump for some of the struggles that they’re facing now.
Dana Taylor:
It’s important to note, Chris, that frustration with Trump doesn’t automatically mean these voters are ready to become Democrats. You spoke with a Vanderbilt political scientist who says that party affiliation is sticky and voter behavior usually changes slowly. So if some of these voters are unhappy, where does that leave them politically? And then what’s the bigger midterm risk for Republicans? Defections, lower turnout, or something else?
Chris Kenning:
Yeah, I mean it’s typical that a president’s party loses seats in the midterm elections. I think during Trump’s first term, the GOP lost 41 seats in the House but retained the Senate. But in 2018, working-class voters still approved of Trump’s economic management by a much bigger margin than they do now. So how that plays out is yet to be seen, but we’ve seen that some polling suggesting that more people among this group say that they’re willing to consider voting for a Democrat, which is still under half, but it’s up from the 2018 midterm. So we could see a change. But I think some of the experts I talked to, as you mentioned the stickiness, it’s not necessarily that they believe a lot of people are going to suddenly vote Democrat who’ve been voting Republican. It may just be that people stay home and that could cut into the GOP efforts to maintain their majorities.
Dana Taylor:
Looking ahead, what will show us whether this is temporary economic grumbling or something more durable, real crack in Trump’s coalition heading into the midterms?
Chris Kenning:
Yeah, it’s interesting because I think what some of these experts saw was that there’s been this really long, since the ’90s, move of white working-class and rural voters to the GOP from Democrats. I mean, it’s happened over time and it’s not known if the polls might change if once gas prices go down and different things, but a lot of other things haven’t quite maybe panned out the way people expected. For example, manufacturing jobs have actually declined slightly since Trump took office. And so that’s yet to be seen, I guess, in terms of how voters balance their political identity with their economic concerns. But I think we’ll see the results in the midterms.
Dana Taylor:
It’s really interesting to hear the voices of American voters through your reporting. Chris Kenning is a national correspondent for USA TODAY. Chris, thank you so much for making the time.
Chris Kenning:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks for listening. I’m Dana Taylor. Our stories come from USA TODAY journalists across the country. I’ll be back tomorrow with a deeper look into a story that matters.
