Swing Voter Sentiment - Trump

A Pattern of Self Harm Accelerates Trump’s Decline 

December 02, 2025

Trump’s downward slide with swing voters has become undeniable. In our latest analysis net sentiment has slipped from –28 to –32, extending a decline that started in late summer and shows little sign of reverse. What is striking in this wave is not a single damaging controversy, but the accumulation of many smaller ones. Instead of recovering as old issues fade, Trump keeps generating new reasons for voters to feel uneasy.

This change matters because dispersed criticism tends to be more durable. When sentiment is driven by one controversy, it can evaporate once the story moves on. In this wave, however, as Epstein dies down, something else takes its place. Voters shift from questioning Trump’s transparency around the Epstein documents to questioning his suitability for office. The effect is not dramatic but incremental — a broadening rather than a spike.

The largest contribution to this shift comes from a rise in posts about abuse of power (15%). These are not new anxieties but a continuation of a theme that has been building for months. What changes in this wave is the breadth of examples people cite. Some focus on his rhetoric toward political opponents, some on clashes with institutions and some on decisions taken by the administration abroad. Taken together, they reinforce a long-standing concern: for many swing voters, Trump’s approach to authority feels erratic and often excessive, with each new episode adding weight to that view.

Within this, foreign-policy decisions gain more prominence. The discussion around Venezuela (5%) — particularly the administration’s bombing of drug-running boats and its threats of further escalation — introduces a fresh line of criticism rooted in questions of judgement, legality and restraint. Alongside this, familiar concerns about Trump’s attitude toward Russia (8%) continue to feature, showing that doubts about his conduct abroad remain as persistent as those raised about his behaviour at home. While not dominant, this foreign-policy strand contributes meaningfully to the broader negative tone of this wave.

Meanwhile, economic criticism remains steady. “Trump economy” accounts for 7% of negative posts, much as it did previously. What stands out is the lack of corresponding economic praise: positive posts on the economy sit at just 2%. If the strategy is to shift attention from economic pressures toward more emotive issues, it appears not to be succeeding. Instead of changing the subject, the new controversies simply expand the list of voter concerns.

Beyond this, there is a small but telling strand of disappointment from within Trump’s own base. The “let down MAGA” topic, while only 4%, points to supporters who say they regret their vote or feel misled by how he has handled recent events. These posts are not widespread, but they matter: in previous waves frustration tended to come from outside Trump’s coalition, whereas this time some of the discontent is emerging from people who once defended him. It reinforces the sense that the pressures facing Trump are not only external, but increasingly internal as well.

On the positive side, support remains limited at 15% of all posts. Much of this is directed not at promoting Trump but at criticising Democrats (29%) or the media. Explicitly pro-Trump praise (23% of positive posts) is present but not dominant and a substantial share of supportive content (20%) is reactive — defending Trump against criticism rather than advancing a positive case.

The overall picture is one of gradual but persistent drift. Trump is not experiencing dramatic collapses, nor is he facing a singular, defining scandal. Instead, he is generating a steady flow of new controversies at the moment old ones begin to fade. On 26 August he stood at –13; four months later he is at –32, having fallen in every single tracker since. No one controversy explains this movement. Crucially, many of the issues driving the decline are self-inflicted — controversies created or intensified by the administration’s own decisions or rhetoric. As soon as one episode recedes, another emerges to take its place. That steady drip of concern is proving more damaging than any single headline. What we are seeing now is not a moment of shock, but a slow, continuous hardening of opinion — a shift that becomes more difficult to reverse with each passing month.