The midterm campaign is taking place in areas that President Donald Trump won in the last election, and largely among voters who have supported him in the past but have been unhappy with his presidency.
Rick Sebring, a resident of rural Black Creek, Georgia, is one of them. He was among the Americans drawn to Trump when he emerged as a political outsider in 2015 and has supported him in every election since.
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Today, he says, he jokes with his son and daughter, ages 25 and 18, that he needs a hat that says, “I fell in love three times.”
Trump is “not the same guy he was before,” said Sebring, 66, who explained that he no longer believes the president is acting in the best interests of ordinary Americans.
“It’s kind of like your wife fucking the guy next door,” Sebring said. “You know, it kinda hurts your butt.”
He is furious about the war on Iran that Trump started after pledging to avoid new wars in the Middle East. Trump should tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose reelection the president supported last week, to “go to hell,” Sebring said, and “cut off all aid” to Israel and Ukraine.
He is concerned that Trump tried to prevent the publication of the Epstein files. He is disappointed that the DOGE program, which Trump appointed Elon Musk to head of government, was ultimately terminated.
Sebring, who responded to the latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll and agreed to a follow-up interview, is part of a small but potentially crucial slice of this year’s electorate. About one in five registered voters who voted for Trump in 2024, or 22 percent, now disapprove of the job he is doing. They represent about 8 percent of the electorate.
They’re not natural Democratic voters — the vast majority identify as Republicans or independents — but this year, many of them, like Sebring, say they will vote for the opposing party. The Republicans hoped to win back some of them. However, if that fails, the election could turn into a Democratic rout, partisan and nonpartisan analysts say.
The voters who turned against Trump are a mix of longtime, once-loyal supporters and those who first joined his coalition in 2024. They are more divided than those who voted for Kamala Harris on the question of who should control the next Congress, according to the poll.
Nearly all of those who voted for Harris in 2024, 99%, say they would like to see the next Congress controlled by Democrats “to stand in the way of Trump,” according to the poll.
Among voters who sided with Trump in 2024, a large majority say they would prefer a Republican Congress “to support Trump’s agenda,” but about 1 in 7 say they favor Democratic control.
To date, Sebring has voted for one Democrat in his life — former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who ran in 1998 to introduce the state’s lottery — but said “that’s going to change in November,” when he plans to vote for Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).
Others say they will share their ticket or stay home.
Carrie Bacon, a 73-year-old retired nurse from Belfast, Maine, voted for Trump in the past because she didn’t want to see his Democratic challengers win the presidency. Today, she describes him as “the bozo that’s in the White House right now,” saying he’s “seeking his own glory and making as much money as possible.”
Bacon, who responded to a Washington Post-Schar School poll from her state, said she would vote for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) because the longtime incumbent has shown she can act independently of her party. But she won’t support the Republican candidate in her congressional district, former Maine Gov. Paul LePage.
Russell Clements, a 61-year-old retiree and three-time Trump voter from Gloucester, Va., who responded to a post-Schar School poll in his state, said he grew bitter toward the president after seeing how he handled the war in Iran. Despite this, Clements said if he could go back to 2024, he still wouldn’t vote for the Democrat.
He’s not sure he’ll vote in this year’s midterm elections, and he suspects that if Democrats take back Congress, they will prioritize impeaching Trump over legislation.
“I don’t see what point there is,” Clements said. “He’ll be gone in two years anyway.”
Jill Vandermolen, a 56-year-old teacher in Menomonee Falls, Wis., who responded to the Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, said she voted for Trump three times because it was the lesser of two evils and because members of her family were enthusiastic about his reputation as a businessman.
She, too, says she might not vote this year.
“Everything costs more,” she says. As for Trump, she said she “has no confidence in him.”
The poll found that 76% of Trump voters nationwide who still approve of the president’s performance were certain to vote or had already done so. In contrast, among Trump voters who now disapprove of him, only 53% say they are certain to vote or have already done so.
Historically, one of the strongest indicators of how a person will vote in midterm elections is their approval or disapproval of the president’s job performance. Indeed, midterm elections generally act as a referendum on which party is in the White House.
The challenge for Republicans is that Trump’s approval, which was already low at the start of the year, continues to decline as the midterm elections approach. His approval was 39 percent among registered voters in the Post’s February poll, 37 percent in July and 33 percent in the current survey.
This decline, which has also been observed in many other surveys, largely concerns Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Almost all Democrats already disapproved of him. Trump’s approval rating is significantly lower than it was in the midterm elections of his first term, in 2018, when Democrats made considerable gains. His position rivals that of Presidents Harry S. Truman in 1946 and George W. Bush in 2006, whose parties suffered major defeats.
However, not all Trump voters who have soured on him will punish Republicans in the midterms, viewing Democrats as a worse option. Efforts to motivate these voters by highlighting issues they dislike Democrats on have been a focus of Trump’s campaign rallies all month.
Amy Reese, 42, of Victoria, Virginia, said she has “never seen the economy this bad, and it’s scary.” She’s supported Trump in every election — and would do so again — but more recently, she’s been horrified when she sees him on TV, “and he says, ‘Oh, the economy is doing so well.'”
Last month, her family’s electric bill was nearly $700. The cost she pays each month for insulin as a type 1 diabetic has more than doubled. Her husband makes his living selling wholesale to convenience stores, and if Trump doesn’t do something soon about gas prices, “he’s going to put a lot of small business owners out of business, including my husband,” she said.
The $5,000 checks promised by Trump if Republicans win the election “are not enough” to make up for the hardship people have faced this year. Plus, Reese said, those checks would never be approved by Congress.
But Reese will vote Republican in the midterms, she said, explaining that she “will never vote for a Democrat,” mainly because she opposes abortion.
Dana Bessen, 76, of Highland, Michigan, also voted for Trump three times, even though she doesn’t think highly of him. The retired engineering technician disapproves of almost everything the president has done during his second term, including his trade policies.
Bessen, however, said he would still vote Republican in the midterms.
“They’re not Trump,” he said.
Post-Poll Director Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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