President Donald Trump swept all seven main battleground states in the 2024 presidential election, but as the midterm elections draw closer, a number of his supporters in those states are starting to voice regret as the president’s deeply unpopular war against Iran continues to squeeze Americans’ pocketbooks.
“Last time I filled up [my tank with gas] I was like, ‘Oh, this hurts,’” said Adele Wilson, a 30-year-old Michigan resident and dental assistant, speaking with The New York Times in its report Monday.
The Times spoke to several former Trump voters across three key battleground states, and like Wilson, others voiced regret for supporting the current commander-in-chief.
“Wilson said Mr. Trump’s second term had been unsuccessful, and she called the war a ‘horrible idea,’” the Times’ report reads.
“She was unsure how she would vote in the midterms, she said, but she had already ruled out voting for [Vice President] JD Vance or [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio in the 2028 presidential race. She said that she was unimpressed with the potential Democratic presidential candidates, but that she might ‘vote Democrat until the Republicans get it together.’”
When asked about how he felt about Trump’s second term, Ryan Hummel, a 25-year-old Ohio resident and recent college graduate – and former Trump supporter – said it didn’t give him "the greatest feeling.”
Hummel called gas costs one of his “chief expenses,” and that he “regretted voting for the president and distrusted the White House,” the Times reported.
And Raven Hoskins, a 27-year-old Michigan resident and package handler, laid the blame for the United States’ worsening economic conditions squarely at Trump’s feet.
“A lot of people, especially of my color, think that he’s a really racist man, but I look at him like a businessman,” Hoskins told the Times. “Him running us like a business – I’ve seen where it’s gotten us, and it’s not good.”