How Big Is MAGA, Really?
Trump is governing like he has a huge mandate. The numbers disagree.
AS WE SURVEY THE WRECKAGE of Trump’s second term, it is often said that half the country voted for this, or worse, half the country is fine with this. Though it is undeniable that something is deeply awry with a nation that can give a popular vote majority to a moral degenerate who did not hide his authoritarian plans, we shouldn’t act as though public opinion hasn’t shifted since the 2024 election. The question for now is: Is MAGA a majority?
In our hyperpartisan politics with paper-thin majorities, small shifts can have monumental consequences.1 It’s a game of inches. If, in this year’s midterm elections, just a few Republicans stay home and a few independents who voted Republican in 2024 support Democrats instead, we can transform the government from a budding dictatorship to a functioning republic again.
The first step is recognizing how big the problem really is. MAGA is a bit of a moving target, but a recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 27 percent of all voters described themselves as “MAGA supporters” and a perhaps surprisingly low 54 percent of Trump voters so identified. In other words, a minority of the voting public and only a little over half of the GOP is Trump’s loyal base.
A new survey from More in Common, an international pro-democracy organization (I sit on its global board), offers a more granular look at Trump 2024 voters and provides further evidence that MAGA is definitely not half the country. Between April 2025 and January 2026, they canvassed more than 18,000 Americans, including nearly 11,000 who voted for Trump. In looking over their findings, the group categorized the Trump voters into four clusters: MAGA Hardliners, Anti-woke Conservatives, Mainline Republicans, and the Reluctant Right. Their conclusion? Trump voters were a coalition, not a cult.
The MAGA Hardliners
These are the people we usually picture sporting red hats. They are highly religious (or at least they think of themselves as God-fearing), are 91 percent white, mostly Gen X (32 percent) or Baby Boomers (42 percent), and less educated than other Trump voters—only 24 percent hold a college degree or higher compared with 29 percent of total Trump voters. They have little trust in institutions, believe that a sinister cabal runs media, business, and politics, and are not averse to their leader ignoring the Supreme Court or other constitutional checks in order to “get things done.”
A lamentable majority (62 percent) of the Hardliners say Trump should “punish his opponents for the damage they’ve done” and 60 percent support their man attempting to serve a third term. (In case you’re wondering, yes, they do know the Constitution imposes a two term limit, because it was included in the question.) Nearly three quarters think we should “use our military to round up everyone who came to the US illegally, put them in mass detention camps, and deport them.” Seventy-four percent say voting for Trump is part of “living out my faith,” and 94 percent (75 percent strongly) believe that God intervened to save Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania so that he could make America great again.
This crowd cannot be trusted with power. They are conspiratorial, cultish, dismissive of constitutional limits, and punitive toward their perceived political enemies. There isn’t much good to say about them except this: They represent only 29 percent of Trump 2024 voters.
The Anti-Woke Conservatives
This next group is a little different. Among Trump voters, they are the least likely to say their faith determines their votes (14 percent versus an average of 27 percent among all Trump voters), but also the most hostile to Democrats. This is an alienated bunch who believe (91 percent) that wokeness is a very serious problem plaguing America. So while that was enough to put them in the GOP column, only 33 percent agree that Trump should punish his opponents, only 44 percent believe God turned Trump’s head an inch in Butler, and only 36 percent say Trump should disregard the Supreme Court. The Anti-woke are the most likely in the Trump fold to say that democracy is the best form of government. This group represents 21 percent of Trump’s coalition.
Mainline Republicans
Making up some 30 percent of the coalition, these are the most likely to say that they are Trump supporters and Republicans equally, the least likely to say America is in decline (39 percent versus 58 percent of all Trump voters), and somewhat cool (43 percent) to ignoring court orders. Fifty-four percent of this group, compared with 76 percent of all Trump voters, agree with the statement “The woke left has ruined American education, news, and entertainment.”
A mainline Republican from New Hampshire told interviewers that “I’m not necessarily pro-Trump all the way but I’m a Republican and that’s just the way I needed to vote.”
Reluctant Right
Of this final cohort, only a scant majority even identifies as Republican and they were the most likely to say they voted for Trump because he seemed less bad than Kamala Harris. This group, which represented one in five Trump voters, was the most likely to say they were ashamed of what happened on January 6th and “do not support it at all” and three times more likely than the typical Trump voter to say he had gone too far on immigration enforcement. Only 28 percent of this group favored rounding up illegal immigrants and deporting them (compared with 52 percent of all Trump voters). Twenty-five percent of the Reluctant Right say they have doubts about or regret their vote entirely. That’s a start.
THE HARDLINE MAGA GROUP BELIEVES all of the worst things, but it’s worth noting that some of the policies associated with Trump 2.0 have far less support among the rest of the coalition. Only 31 percent support deporting immigrants to third countries. And fully 62 percent of Mainline Conservatives and 58 percent of the Reluctant Right agreed with the statement: “I feel sympathetic towards people from other countries who travel to the US border in an attempt to improve their lives.”
The Economist/YouGov poll found further fissures suggesting that Trump voters are not a monolith. Asked whether they supported increases or decreases in spending on Medicaid, for example, which the GOP cut by $1 trillion in last year’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” only 28 percent of Trump voters favored decreasing spending. Thirty-three percent preferred to maintain current levels of spending, while 20 percent preferred slight increases and 14 percent favored large increases. So a large majority, 67 percent, of Trump voters oppose the cuts to Medicaid that Mike Johnson and JD Vance were certain would delight their base.
Here’s another revealing stat: Only 50 percent of Trump voters said Trump’s attempts to take Greenland were a “good thing.” Twenty-two percent said it was bad, and 29 percent were unsure.
Trump’s base is hate-filled and dangerous, but it is not the majority. Nor is it half of the country. As a January Pew poll found, only 27 percent of respondents say they support all or most of Trump’s policies, down from 35 percent when he took the oath of office. Nearly all of that decline is attributable to Republicans. The erosion is proceeding fast, and based on the small size of the cult, there is plenty of room for more. Onward!
If and when we get past this emergency, we will need to implement reforms like non-partisan primaries to disincentivize extremism.