The numbers are clear: President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are widening, and he’s losing the most ground with groups that were key demographics for his victory in 2024.
In that poll, men under the age of 30 chose Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris by about one point — not by much, but a big improvement for Republicans, who have struggled with younger voters. This year, Trump’s approval rating with the same group has plummeted. A recent CNN poll he was underwater by about 55 points and one group.
We wanted to understand what was going on, so America, Really headed to Washington for Trump’s June 14 UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House. It was a night designed for the White House to speak directly to young people (including Trump’s love of combat sports like the UFC). My question to the attendees was very simple: What? Has their age group turned on Trump, or is this just noise?
What I heard — from the young people standing in line and from Jack Posobiec, the far-right activist who has spent years selling Trump to this audience — is that the softening is real. Three things kept coming up as explanations:
Almost everyone I spoke to came back at the price. Trump’s election was built on a promise of cheap gas and cheap goods — and the actual receipts haven’t backed that up. As one young man explained to me: “(Trump) said he was against war. He said he would lower prices, and we’re not the only ones… Those results don’t happen.”
Another put it more bluntly: “The prices are ridiculous. Don’t even get me started on gas. I don’t want to fill my gas tank anymore.” A third, who described himself as middle-class, said his cut was personal: “I want things that affect my life. I want to see a change in my normal everyday life, and I don’t see that.”
Even Posobiec, who still supports Trump, didn’t dispute that the economy has become a factor for young Trump voters who might defect. “Gas prices are up,” he admitted, but “they’re going down.” He also offered the same defense that the Trump administration has offered: that higher gas prices are just the price of Trump’s efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program. (That may take them too far, however. Beginning in early July, according to an Economist/YouGov poll69 percent of young people disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran.)
That’s a second break – and for many of these young people, a deep one. “We didn’t know the war would start with other countries,” one person said. When I asked what one issue they’d like Trump to fix, the answer came quickly: “Foreign aid to Israel. A little more. People are dying, and it shouldn’t happen — and we’re paying for it as taxpayers.” His friend agreed: “We don’t want conflict. Most of the guys are on the same page with that.”
This is something Posobiec said he also hears from young conservatives: “Young people saying, ‘Look, we want to focus more on domestic than foreign policy.’ We’ve heard that a lot today.”
Posebiec tried to gloss over the definition — “It’s a war, but it’s not an eternal war,” he said — but that’s a hard sell to a group that took Trump at his word. And he acknowledged the two grievances are linked: “You can’t separate the Iran war from the gas prices and the economic pain that people are feeling.”
3. Epstein and broken trust
The third reason is less about policy and more about a betrayed campaign promise. The Epstein case, and especially the feeling that Trump promised transparency and then backtracked, has struck a chord with his young voters.
“After the Epstein files and everything, (things) have escalated in the way he’s been acting,” one young man said. “It was much colder before that.” Another put it this way: “No one likes children who loves children.
Even Posobiec, he himself is famous “Pizza Gate” the conspiracy theorist who helped build the elite-versus-the-people image in the first place, thinks Trump’s lack of transparency cost him. “Break the Band-Aid. Throw all the files out there,” he said. His warning was that stonewalling is costing Trump the perfect relationship that UFC night was meant to celebrate. “It becomes a barrier between that relationship that he has always had with ordinary people. ‘We thought you were on our side. Let go of everything.’
To be clear: None of this makes these young people Democrats. And many came for the UFC fight, not the president himself. But it’s clear that their support for Trump is lighter than it was in the last election — and, on the economy, on Iran, and on Epstein, they’re telling anyone who will listen that they feel differently now. It’s a real shift, and one that could have implications not just for the midterms but for election cycles to come.
As always, there’s a lot more in the full show, too listen America, Really wherever you find your podcasts or watch them Vox’s YouTube channel.
