Trump voter regret is clearly registering now

 As President Donald Trump’s poll numbers have hit new lows amid the Iran war, there’s now the firmest evidence yet of a long-anticipated dynamic: the regretful Trump voter.

While a fair number of Trump voters have had reservations for a while, a series of polls in recent weeks shows those reservations are starting to tip over into something more serious.

A YouGov poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst — a survey we’ve spotlighted before on this issue — is the hardest evidence.

Rather than ask a straight question about whether people regret their votes, the poll offers a sliding scale of more-nuanced options, including “some concerns,” “mixed feelings” and “some regrets,” rather than just full-on regret.

In April 2025, 74% of Trump voters scorned any of those options and said they were “very confident” in their vote. But today, that number has declined to 62%.

The 38% of Trump voters who chose a less-resolute option was double the 19% of Kamala Harris voters who did the same.

Another 21% of Trump voters said they were still “confident” in their votes but had “some concerns.”

And the percentage who declined to express confidence in their vote — and said they at least had “mixed feelings” — has gone from 8% in April 2025 to 17% today.

Just 5% said they regret their vote and would vote differently if they could. But that appears to actually undersell the level of regret.

When given a chance to recast their 2024 votes, in fact, just 84% of Trump voters said they would vote for him again — compared to 91% for Harris voters.

So while some might prefer to not call it “regret,” 16% would apparently do things differently with hindsight.

A Strength in Numbers-Verasight poll from around the same time fills out the regretful picture.

It found 13% of Trump voters said they either “strongly” (5%) or “somewhat” (8%) regret their vote — double the number for Harris voters.

Regret was particularly high among Trump voters under 30 years old (17%) and Hispanics (16%).

The percentage of Trump voters expressing regret is not only double the percentage for Harris voters; it’s also double the 6-7% of Trump voters who said the same in polling last April and October from the Washington Post and Ipsos.

Just to underscore, these surveys suggest between 1 in 8 and 1 in 6 Trump voters express some measure of regret for their 2024 votes. Were those percentages to desert the GOP in the 2026 midterm elections, it would almost undoubtedly be a wave election for Democrats.

And this is hardly the only proof of Trump’s base softening on him. While there has been plenty of talk about how self-described MAGA supporters back the Iran war, it’s clear lots of voters in Trump’s base don’t.

And a CNN poll this week showed a real softness on that issue and plenty of others.

Here are the percentages of 2024 Trump voters who disapproved of him in each of these areas:

• Overall: 22%
• Immigration: 15%
• Foreign affairs: 25%
• Iran: 28%
• Economy: 30%
• Inflation: 39%
• Gas prices: 45%

Those are large chunks of Trump’s voter base who disapprove of him on some of the central issues of the day — and some of the central issues he campaigned on. At this point, whether those voters technically subscribe to the word “regret” is kind of beside the point.

Source: CNN