Trump’s Popularity Has Dipped Most In Red States

share of the vote among people who held an unfavorable view of him. That group of voters — we’ve dubbed them “Reluctant Trump voters” — may have been more plentiful in red states.⁶ In deeply red Kentucky, for example, Trump lost among people who held an unfavorable view of him by just 40 percentage points. In deeply blue California, he lost this same group by 74 points.

So perhaps what we’re seeing isn’t a decline in Trump’s support in conservative states, but rather a reflection of its weakness from the start: Red-state voters who pulled the lever for Trump but didn’t like him, still don’t like him.

What will be interesting to see is how many of these red-state voters who dislike Trump now will be willing to vote for Republicans in 2018 without Clinton on the ballot. Off-year elections, like those coming up in 2018, are usually a referendum on the party in power. We’ve already seen that Democrats have been able to do well in special elections this year, as Trump’s approval ratings have slumped. We’ve also seen that House Republicans are picking up very few supporters among people who disapprove of Trump’s job performance in national polling. That is, there aren’t a lot of voters who dislike Trump and are still willing to say they’re going to vote Republican.

If red state voters who dislike Trump but voted for him in 2016 abandon the Republican Party in 2018, it could lead to some unexpected electoral results. It’s another reason that Democrats, if they want to maximize their chances of winning back the House, should compete in a wide variety of districts.