I attended MAGA rallies in multiple states and uncovered three main reasons loyalists still back Trump

Months before the 2026 midterms, President Donald Trump's standing with the public has sunk, yet many of his most committed supporters remain with him. Rutgers University-Newark anthropologist Alex Hinton, who studies the MAGA movement, visited rallies in three states on Oct. 24-25, 2026, including a Turning Point USA turnout event near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A mid-October poll found only a third of American adults approving of Trump's performance, while 71% think the country is on the wrong track. Hinton points to the Iran war, with its casualties and costs, and to inflation as sources of the damage, according to The Independent.

Hinton identifies three reasons loyalists stay. One is dread of Democrats: Trump and allies portray the left as a socialist menace, citing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and the White House circulated footage of unrest in France as a supposed preview. Another is immigration, where backers credit Trump with sealing the border. Canvassers in Harrisburg were told to stress that, along with tax cuts and falling crime. The third is faith in his dealmaking record, plus the 2025 tax and spending law and record stock prices. Representative Dan Meuser and activist Scott Presler spoke at the Harrisburg event.

Summarized by PolitiKool from The Independent’s reporting. Read the full story at The Independent →