Doylestown (United States) (AFP) – Michelle Sims hesitated when asked if she still backed Donald Trump one year into his presidency. “Yeah — to a certain extent,” she sighed as she eyed groceries in a Pennsylvania food bank. Sims, who does not work due to medical issues, went on to list her worries about the high cost of living and cuts to welfare programs — problems that she had hoped Trump would improve. The 50-year-old is one of many Americans whose support for Trump has waned since he took office last January, as opinion polls show a slump in the president’s approval rating.
Sims, wearing a gray cardigan and a large hair clip, told AFP she had particularly wanted Trump to deliver on his promises to address affordability issues. But while she is happy to see gas prices down, “I don’t think everything was achieved.” “My expectations were a little bit higher. I was hoping more would have been done by now,” said Sims. She lives in a suburb of Philadelphia in Bucks County, an area that politicians often target in US elections as voters “swing” between candidates, rather than consistently backing the same party. Trump won there in 2024 by a tiny margin — the first time since 1988 a Republican presidential candidate has taken Bucks County. But in a sign of shifting sentiment, a wave of Democratic candidates swept the county in 2025 local elections.
“People just want government to work. They don’t want chaos,” Danny Ceisler, the newly elected Democratic sheriff of Bucks County, told AFP. Ceisler successfully lobbied against his officers partnering with ICE, the immigration enforcement agency leading Trump’s mass deportation drive — a key and contentious pillar of his presidency.
Analysts say that lukewarm support for Trump in the first place means some who voted for him have sat out of recent elections in Pennsylvania and other states, where Democrats have also enjoyed major electoral victories. “In 2024, his narrow winning margin was enabled by a fairly modest-sized cohort of voters in places like Bucks County who were dissatisfied with the direction of the country, particularly on the cost of living,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania. “That group of voters has become disillusioned with Trump, with their hopes for a more affordable life largely unrealized and their reservations about Trump’s character and leadership only enhanced.”
A Gallup poll last month showed Trump’s approval rating at 36 percent, down from 47 percent when he took office. Faced with a drop in popularity ahead of crucial 2026 midterm elections, which will decide who controls Congress, the president has returned to campaign-style rallies to engage voters. Joe Kramley, a retired Navy technician who voted for Trump in 2024 mostly due to immigration worries, said he was getting fed up with the president. “I wish he’d shut up and (just) do what he’s going to do,” Kramley, 83, told AFP in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on a historic street lined with shops and cafes. “I’m satisfied with some of his programs. A lot of them aren’t working out. Inflation is still here,” he said, also calling Trump’s repeated remarks that he wants to take over Greenland “ridiculous.”
Asked if he would vote for Trump again given the chance, Kramley said it “depends on who’s running” — but he sees no viable Democratic presidential candidate. At a diner on the outskirts of Doylestown, views were similarly mixed. “It’s not so much that I like Trump, I like the decisions he’s making and the direction of the country,” said Gary Armstrong, an insurance salesman and self-described conservative. The 68-year-old said he is “very happy” with his vote for Trump “over what I see on the far left side.”
© 2024 AFP
