Fragmenting Trump’s Republican Party

Democracy Corps conducted a national web survey among 2,770 registered voters from Sept. 9-15, 2022. The data include a base sample of 1,270 registered voters, with large oversamples of 500 Black voters, 500 Hispanic voters, and 500 AAPI voters. The oversample data are statistically weighted to ensure the sample’s regional, age, and gender composition reflects that of the estimated registered voters in the United States

Donald Trump stokes the beating heart of the party — which includes Republican conservatives who are evangelicals who strongly approve of him and his even stronger base in the non-evangelicals GOP conservatives. There is a strong affinity of the Trump aligned, the GOP conservatives who somewhat approve of Trump because of their strong view on race issues.

This is a party united with its intense reaction against Nancy Pelosi, undocumented immigrants, Black Lives Matter, transgender and gender overreach. Central are reactions to Critical Race Theory and fear of whites becoming a minority. The party is very united on these issues.

But reaction against Trump on key issues shows the potential to fracture on the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, guns, the Affordable Care Act, and MAGA Republicans – creates potential with moderate Republicans, Cheney conservatives and Democratic defectors. (The last are most working class voters who became Republican under Trump.)

Even small shifts can make a huge difference when you are eroding the base of the other party. Right now, Democrats are slightly more consolidated. Messages shifts the Democratic vote among Cheney conservatives from 4 to 6 percent. That vote is way below the current defection rate on key issues.

While embrace of NRA and guns is key to the Trump loyalist party, a significant number in the GOP orbit are cool to the NRA, including moderate Republicans, Cheney conservatives and GOP defectors. Let’s see how they react to a party that won’t even raise the AR15 age to 21 years.

Take note of how economically populist are the non-evangelical Trump loyalists who 60% warm to taxing billionaires.

To see the results and read more of our key findings, click on the document below.

GOP Report Powerpoint

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