We are now coming to the halfway point of Donald Trump‘s second term as president and many voters, even former die-hard MAGA supporters, are losing faith. That comes against the simple fact that the economic situation for regular Americans is, objectively, not great right now.
Inflation was about 3.4% in August 2026 (well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target) and gasoline and diesel prices are surging due to Trump’s war with Iran, with national averages in the mid-$4 range. That’s sent the price of household goods surging, tightening the screws on millions of regular American households.
None of this is what Republicans wanted to be contending with going into the November midterms. Now, as a snapshot of the crisis of confidence former Trump voters have in the president, one is not only planning to vote Democrat, but actively campaign for them.
“It feels like a bribe, a slap in the face”
Enter Kyle Bos, who recently lost his job at a truck factory in Springfield, Ohio. Bos, a 30-year-old father of two (with a third on the way), says he voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, in the hope that life would improve. But then, on Sept. 30, he and around 1,400 of his colleagues at the Navistar truck factory were laid off. Rubbing a little salt into the wound is that Trump held a rally nearby three days before and claimed that Ohio was “booming.”
Bos, who considers himself a “centrist”, told Associated Press, “Something has to change politically in this country. Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.” Bos is also repulsed by Trump’s promise to hand out $5,000 checks to Americans, so long as Republicans win both the House and Senate in November, saying: “It feels like a bribe, a slap in the face, and, like, that we’re all ignorant.”
The Associated Press says Bos will now be knocking on doors in an effort to boost Democrats’ chances in races up and down the state. The Democrats are lucky to have him, as a regretful Trump voter is a much more convincing figure to a wavering Trump voter than a Democrat, who may find it difficult to resist an “I told you so.”
The group Republican Voters Against Trump explicitly uses this approach, saying that personal testimonials from former Trump supporters create a “permission structure” that makes it more socially acceptable for other Republicans or Trump voters to consider voting against Trump. Whether this translates into a MAGA rout in November remains to be seen, though the current polling makes for sobering reading for the GOP.
Published: Oct 8, 2026 05:43 am