One year of Trump 2.0. How’s his coalition doing?
Redistricting turns Dem, the four types of Trump voter, the partisanship of sports athletes, realignment in one chart, notes from the software apocalypse, walking is good for you
No. 388 | January 23, 2026
🎂 One year of Trump 2.0
At the one year mark of presidential terms, you tend to get polls. Lots of them. And you’ll definitely get a New York Times/Siena poll.
The headline here is this chart from Nate Cohn (who should be the one doing the write-up for the print edition -ed.) showing most of the groups of the groups that swung hard towards Trump reverting back to their 2020 support levels — or worse.
Has Trump lost his coalition? That depends on how you define what the coalition is.
In 2016 and 2020, Trump realigned a lot of voters — white and nonwhite — who were better aligned with a populist and traditionalist vision of America but who previously voted Democratic. Those gains appear to be durable. If you want to compare 2026 to 2018, let’s compare demographic support levels in that election to this one as measured by the NYT/Siena poll, as Ryan Girdusky does in his excellent National Populist Newsletter:
Democrats lead 18-29-year-olds by 27 points, down 22 points from 2018.
Democrats lead 30-44-year-olds by 12 points, down 9 points from 2018.
Democrats lead among black voters by 55 points, down 31 points from 2018.
Democrats lead among Hispanics by 16 points, down 31 points from 2018.
Republicans lead among white voters by 7 points, up 1 point from 2018.
Republicans lead among men by 6 points, up 8 points from 2018.
Democrats lead among women by 16 points, down 2 points from 2018.
Democrats lead among whites with a college degree by 21 points, up 3 points from 2018.
Republicans lead among whites without a college degree by 26 points, up about 1 point from 2018.
If you think Democrats leading the generic ballot among Hispanics by 16 points is historically great for them, you have the memory of a fruit fly.
We can break down the realignment in two phases — an ideological realignment that hardened America into new MAGA / anti-MAGA battle lines in 2016 and 2020, and a further surge to Trump among unaligned and disaffected voters in 2024 that looks to be less durable. Time will tell if these are garden-variety midterm dynamics (the more likely explanation, imo) or some more durable change in sentiment (we’ll only know in 2028).
There’s also a bit of 3D chess going on with the composition of the electorate. Trump has declined the most among non-midterm voters. Many will go from voting for Trump to not voting at all, but if they did vote in 2026, they might not vote Republican. This same dynamic existed with low-propensity Biden 2020 voters, but in a presidential turnout, more would simply become Trump 2024 voters rather than dropping out of the electorate entirely. So, the effect in a lower-turnout midterm will be somewhat muted — but still undeniably negative for the GOP.
In terms of the actual balance of power, remember that the country has just re-redistricted. The primary effect of that will be that fewer and fewer Americans will have any sort of competitive election for Congress on their ballot. So national trends are more and more detached from the narrowing set of swing districts that the GOP will have to defend.
Speaking of redistricting, we’re now talking about a Democratic advantage from mid-decade redistricting (particularly if laser-eyed Louise Lucas gets her way). I thought any party getting an advantage from gerrymandering was a “five alarm fire for democracy” — but here we are. For the GOP to get back to even or better, it’ll take Florida moving (more likely) or an early SCOTUS decision striking down Article 2 of the VRA (timing makes it more of a 2028 prospect, but a major GOP advantage if and when it happens).
Silver Bulletin is out with its midterm polling averages, which now show Democrats beating Republicans by 5.3%.
Going back to the Trump coalition, More in Common has released a typology of the four distinct types of Trump voters; MAGA Hardliners (29%), Anti-Woke Conservatives (21%), Mainline Republicans (30%), and the Reluctant Right (20%). Like our own political tribes quiz, you can take their quiz to see which you are if you’re inclined towards the right.
🏀 The partisanship of sports athletes
According to voter file research from VoteHub, partisanship differs a lot between sports leagues with Democrats holding a whopping 68-2 advantage among among WNBA players and Republicans a 54-8 advantage among MLB players.
There are also big differences breaking this down by position in the NFL.
If you think this tells you a lot about racial makeup of each position — you’re right. And if you think you can see Cooper DeJean on this chart, you’re also probably right. The implication here is that white male athletes are a very Republican group — less than 10% are registered Democrats in states with party registration.
👷 The Realignment in one chart
I led off talking about The Tom Wood Chart (a coinage I hope sticks) in Party of the People, and the 2024 update is even more dramatic. Among whites, income is even more negatively correlated with Republican voting than ever, a complete reversal of the 20th century pattern where Democrats were well and truly the party of the working class.
👷 Swearing is really $&@!Y&* unpopular
New polling from David Shor shows that politicians who swear to convey passion and authenticity may want to rethink that choice. All voter groups — especially those in the rule-following Democratic coalition — find swearing by politicians unacceptable.
🤖 Notes from the software apocalypse
Vibe coding — a new favorite topic of this newsletter — has become such a thing that it’s tanking the valuations of traditional software stocks like Salesforce and Atlassian.
But it does enable you to build cool stuff fast, like visualizing year-round weather in different cities as 3D rings.
🧓 The longevity benefits of exercise visualized
More than any other form of exercise, walking has the most immediate and sustained longevity benefits, and some activities shorten your lifespan the more you do them.
