Donald Trump’s Approval Rating Flips With Rural Voters 25JUL26

 MAYBE, just maybe it is finally sinking in to those who voted for NOT MY pres drumpf/trump that maybe they made a mistake. Democrats just need to make sure they don't get pulled into pointless social issues that most people are not concerned about when a huge number of Americans are doing everything they can to put food on their table, keep a roof over their heads and are praying they don't get seriously sick. To change the direction our country is going we need to stay focused on affordability of groceries, gasoline, utilities, housing, health insurance, medication and childcare along with the illegal war on Iran, the epstein files and the out of control ice hsi and cbp gestapo. The 2026 Midterm election day is 3 NOVEMBER. From Newsweek.....

Donald Trump’s Approval Rating Flips With Rural Voters

By Sam Stevenson

Associate News Editor

President Donald Trump's approval rating among rural Americans has swung back into negative territory, according to a new Fox News poll, reversing a brief improvement seen just a month earlier and raising fresh questions about one of the president's most reliable voting blocs.

Key Points

• A new Fox News poll found Trump at 44 percent approval and 56 percent disapproval among rural voters, giving him a net -12 approval rating.
• That is a 14-point decline from June, when the same polling series found him at 51 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval, a net +2 rating.
• Trump's overall approval rating remains deeply underwater at 39 percent approve and 61 percent disapprove, a net -22 rating, unchanged from May and one point worse than June.
• Rural voters continue to view Trump more favorably than voters overall, but dissatisfaction with the economy and inflation remains widespread.

What To Know

Trump's approval rating among rural voters fell from net positive territory in June to net negative territory in July, according to consecutive Fox News national polls conducted roughly one month apart.

Rural America has long been the foundation of Trump's political coalition. A 14-point swing in a single month suggests volatility within a group that has historically been among his strongest sources of support.

Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms will be watching closely to see whether declining approval among rural voters translates into softer turnout or reduced margins in competitive states and congressional districts.

In a response the administration has used repeatedly in reply to polling inquiries, spokesman Davis Ingle said "the ultimate poll was November 5, 2024," adding that Trump is continuing to deliver on a "popular and commonsense agenda" and that "this is just the beginning as his agenda continues taking effect."

Why It Matters

Rural America has become one of the Republican Party's most important electoral advantages over the past decade. While Trump remains considerably more popular in rural communities than he is nationally, shifts within the group can be politically significant because Republican victories often depend on running up large margins outside major metropolitan areas.

The latest results are particularly notable because they erase a brief rebound recorded in June. After climbing back above water for the first time in months, Trump's standing among rural voters has once again slipped into negative territory.

That movement also comes as economic concerns continue to dominate voter sentiment. Rising costs, stubborn inflation and renewed tensions involving Iran have all remained prominent issues during the summer, particularly in farming communities that are more exposed to changes in fuel and fertilizer prices.

Rural Approval Swings Negative Again

The latest Fox News poll was conducted July 17-20, 2026, among 1,003 registered voters nationwide and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Among rural voters, Trump recorded:

• 44 percent approve
• 56 percent disapprove
• Net approval: -12

While those numbers are stronger than Trump's overall standing, they nevertheless represent a sharp deterioration from June.

The previous Fox News poll found:

• 51 percent approve
• 49 percent disapprove
• Net approval: +2

Taken together, the results represent a 14-point swing against Trump among rural voters in just one month.

Long-Term Trend

The July result is the latest twist in what has been an increasingly uneven trend for Trump among rural voters. At the start of his second term, rural America remained one of the president's strongest political bases.

In March 2025, Fox News polling showed Trump with a net approval rating of +20 among rural voters, even as his overall approval rating nationwide was already slightly underwater at -2.

Support eroded through much of 2025. Rural net approval slipped to +7 by June 2025 before recovering somewhat to +11 in December, suggesting that while his standing remained considerably stronger in rural communities than among voters overall, enthusiasm was no longer as robust as it had been immediately after taking office.

The sharpest deterioration came during 2026. Rural approval dropped from +2 in April to -14 in May, marking the first significant move into negative territory in this polling series.

A brief rebound followed in June, when Trump returned to a net positive +2, but that recovery proved short-lived. The latest survey shows support falling back to -12 in July, a 14-point swing in a single month.

The broader national trend has been more consistent. Trump's overall approval rating has remained underwater throughout 2026, moving from -16 in April to -22 in May, -21 in June and -22 again in July.

It suggests that rural voters still view Trump more favorably than the electorate as a whole.

However, the gap has narrowed sharply compared with the early months of his second term, and recent polling indicates those voters have become considerably more volatile than they were a year ago.

Rural Voters Still Rate Trump Better

The latest July survey also found that rural Americans continue to give Trump somewhat stronger marks on key policy issues than voters overall.

On the economy:

• Overall voters: 33 percent approve, 67 percent disapprove
• Rural voters: 37 percent approve, 63 percent disapprove

On inflation:

• Overall voters: 27 percent approve, 73 percent disapprove
• Rural voters: 30 percent approve, 68 percent disapprove

On immigration:

• Overall voters: 42 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove
• Rural voters: 48 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove

Those numbers show that rural voters remain somewhat more favorable toward the administration across major issues.

However, every issue tested still produced net negative ratings, including immigration, traditionally one of Trump's strongest policy areas.

Economy And Inflation Remain A Challenge

The issue breakdown underscores the extent to which economic concerns continue to weigh on the administration.

Just 33 percent of voters overall approve of Trump's handling of the economy, while approval on inflation is even lower at 27 percent.

Rural voters are somewhat less negative but still overwhelmingly dissatisfied. Only 37 percent approve of Trump's handling of the economy, while 30 percent approve of his handling of inflation.

Those findings are notable because economic concerns often carry particular weight in rural communities, where household budgets can be more sensitive to energy prices and agricultural input costs.

Iran Tensions Could Be A Factor

The latest deterioration also comes amid renewed military activity involving Iran. While the Fox News survey does not identify the cause of changing voter attitudes, the timing is notable.

Energy markets and fertilizer supply chains are particularly vulnerable to instability in the Middle East.

Farmers and rural communities tend to be more directly exposed to increases in diesel and fertilizer costs than many other groups because those inputs play a major role in agricultural production.

Concerns about prices and affordability have repeatedly appeared in polling throughout 2026. Whether the latest rural decline proves temporary or reflects deeper dissatisfaction remains unclear.

Six Midterm Races To Watch Where Rural Voters Could Matter

North Carolina Senate, Open Seat

Former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chair, are running for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis.

The race is one of the clearest Senate battlegrounds of 2026, with Democrats needing suburban strength around Raleigh and Charlotte to withstand Republican margins in rural parts of the state.

Iowa Senate, Open Seat

Republican Representative Ashley Hinson and Democratic state Representative Josh Turek are competing for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Senator Joni Ernst.

In a heavily agricultural state, farm costs, trade and rural turnout could shape whether Democrats can make a Republican-leaning seat competitive.

Ohio Special Senate Election

Appointed Republican Senator Jon Husted is facing former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in the special election for the seat previously held by Vice President JD Vance.

Brown’s path depends on limiting Democratic losses in rural and working-class areas that have shifted toward Republicans, while Husted needs those voters to hold a seat central to GOP control of the Senate.

Maine Senate

Republican Senator Susan Collins is seeking a sixth term in one of Democrats’ top Senate pickup opportunities, with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson becoming the Democratic nominee after oyster farmer Graham Platner withdrew from the race.

Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from northern Maine, was confirmed as the party's nominee through its delegate process at Saturday’s convention, making rural northern Maine and small-town independents central to the race.

Michigan Governor, Open Seat

With Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer term-limited, Michigan has one of the cycle’s most closely watched open governor’s races.

Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Republican Representative John James are among the high-profile candidates in a state where rural turnout in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula could help decide a close contest.

Wisconsin Governor, Open Seat

Wisconsin’s open governor’s race follows Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ decision not to seek another term.

Former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes is among the Democratic contenders, while Republican Representative Tom Tiffany is the GOP front-runner; in a state known for razor-thin margins, Republican strength in rural western and northern Wisconsin could offset Democratic votes in Milwaukee and Madison.

What Comes Next

One poll alone cannot determine whether a lasting shift is underway. What the Fox News trend does show is considerable volatility.

That suggests sentiment within one of his strongest electoral constituencies remains highly fluid.

For Republicans looking toward the 2026 midterms, the key question is not whether rural America remains broadly Republican. It is whether voters who have historically formed the backbone of Trump's coalition remain enthusiastic enough to deliver the kinds of margins that have powered Republican victories in recent years.

Contact Newsweek editor on this story: Edward Pearcey.

VIDEO & ARTICLE: ICE Arrests Surge at Airports, Opening New Front in Deportation Drive 28JUL26

 THERE is nothing good to be said about anyone who is part of the Department of Homeland Terrorism (security) and also anyone associated with the office of the Border Czar. Actually, there isn't anything good to be said about anyone who has any association with the ice, hsi and cbp gestapo as well as anyone in this corrupt and perverse administration. These are not good people. It seems these people are inherently evil, they revel in cruelty and unkindness. They must be sad, miserable souls who will find out things will only get worse for them if they don't get their lives changed soon. From the New York Times.....

ICE Arrests Surge at Airports, Opening New Front in Deportation Drive

Federal agents are arresting spouses of Americans, tech workers and others whose visas have expired, including many who have active applications to stay in the country.

The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas at American airports, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and immigration lawyers.CreditCredit...Alicia Dantzker

By Hamed Aleaziz and Miriam Jordan

July 28, 2026

The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with immigration lawyers — a tactic that opens up a vast new pool of people for deportation.

Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent weeks. Some of the arrests have occurred quietly, while others have happened as angry fellow passengers filmed the encounters.

The recent arrests appear to be an expansion of an arrangement between the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Times reported in December that ICE officers were arresting people with deportation orders at airports with the help of information provided by airlines to the T.S.A.

Now, through a review of Homeland Security Department documents and interviews with lawyers for more than 25 people from more than a dozen countries recently detained at airports, The Times has learned that the program apparently now includes people with expired visas — a much larger group.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and visitors overstay visas each year. Many with expired visas occupy a legal gray area, as they are awaiting visa extensions or green cards and have been issued work permits. Such individuals were not prioritized for deportation in the past unless they had committed crimes, and they were rarely detained while waiting for visa extensions or green cards. But that has changed under President Trump, whose administration has undertaken a campaign of mass deportation and views all visa overstays as illegal.

“This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport,” a spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department said in a statement. The agency did not confirm the expansion of the program.

The department, which oversees ICE, has not disclosed how many people have been detained at airports as overstays under the new initiative. The arrests come during a period in which the White House has pushed ICE for more arrests across the country, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has pledged to turn “up the heat on the streets.” To that end, the administration has set a target of 2,000 immigration arrests a day, roughly double the pace from earlier this year.

Interviews with more than a dozen immigration attorneys, advocacy organizations and an airline employee reveal a broad cross-section of targets: an engineer awaiting a work-visa extension, several newlyweds married to U.S. citizens, and a former au pair.

Footage of encounters between travelers and ICE officers have flooded social media. In one widely circulated video, Chantal Morales Rojas, a 27-year-old from Ecuador, was detained by plainclothes officers as she boarded a Southwest Airlines flight from Denver to Oakland, Calif., on July 20. She had been spending the weekend with the family for whom she had worked as an au pair, according to the family.

When Ms. Morales Rojas scanned her boarding pass, an alarm sounded and the gate agent asked her to wait. Moments later, two plainclothes agents intercepted her in the jetway.

“They said they were going to be respectful, that they would be polite,” Alicia Dantzker, a friend of the family, who was on the same flight and filmed part of the encounter, told The Times in an interview. The video captures the men encircling Ms. Morales Rojas, and then ushering her through a side door and down steps to the tarmac as Ms. Dantzker screams for help.

Also among those detained was a Ugandan woman in a wheelchair who has sickle cell anemia and an active asylum application, according to her lawyer.

In another case, ICE attempted to arrest an Australian citizen who had overstayed his visa at the Las Vegas airport, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The scene was recorded by a bystander whose video of the encounter drew wide attention. Officers let him go “to de-escalate the situation and for officer safety,” but ICE ended up taking him into custody a day later when he tried to board a flight in Los Angeles, the department said in a statement.

“In 38 years practicing immigration law, I had never seen this,” said Charles Kuck, who is based in Atlanta and is representing an Indian engineer who was detained while awaiting a work-permit extension. “And I know it’s happening to lots of people.”

Shannon Shepherd, an immigration lawyer who is vice chair for the Chicago chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said she and other lawyers were revising longstanding advice about domestic air travel.

“Before, I was saying, ‘As long as you have an ID, you can travel domestically,’” Ms. Shepherd said. “Now I am turning around and saying, ‘If you are in the process of changing status, avoid any travel.’”

The original collaboration between T.S.A. and ICE began in May 2025, when the airport security agency started sharing information with the immigration agency for enforcement purposes, according to a document obtained via the Freedom of Information Act from the government transparency group American Oversight and shared with The Times.

ICE shared names of individuals with deportation orders with the airport agency, which would run them through its databases and report any hits to ICE for potential arrest. It was a remarkable shift from past practices, when the federal government avoided involving the T.S.A. in immigration enforcement for fear of disrupting domestic travel.

Now, “the net they are casting for people they want to detain is far wider,” said Ghassan Shamieh, an immigration lawyer in San Francisco.

“It’s not people with criminal records” being targeted, Mr. Shamieh said. “You are talking about people with legitimate pending applications.”

Mr. Shamieh has four clients who were detained at airports in the last 10 days, including two women who recently married Americans and are in the process of obtaining permanent residency through their spouses. One of the husbands was with his wife when she was taken into custody after they landed in Burbank, Calif.

On Tuesday morning, an immigration judge granted her release on a $35,000 bond. But D.H.S. lawyers reserved the right to appeal within 30 days, and she is likely to remain detained until they decide.

Ms. Morales Rojas, the au pair, entered the United States lawfully in January 2023 as a J-1 exchange visitor, a legal status that allowed her to work for two years, according to her lawyer. Her visa expired Jan. 4, 2025, according to D.H.S. Before the exchange program ended, Ms. Morales Rojas filed an application with immigration authorities to remain in the country, said the lawyer, Laura Lichter.

“During the last three and a half years, Morales Rojas lived openly in the United States with the government’s knowledge of her pending case, passed repeated background checks, and received work authorization from D.H.S. while waiting for her application to be reviewed,” Ms. Lichter said. “The process she’s pursuing is completely lawful.”

But homeland security officials said in a statement that “in violation of our nation’s laws, she overstayed her visa.” On Tuesday afternoon, a judge granted her release on a $3,000 bond, and she is likely to leave detention by Wednesday.

Ms. Lichter has filed suit challenging the government’s decision to arrest and detain Ms. Morales Rojas without a proper arrest warrant and without an individualized determination that detention was necessary.

Lauren and Scott Cahr, her former employers, said they had hired Ms. Morales Rojas when their first child, Silas, was 6 months old. The Cahrs said in an interview that they had flown Ms. Morales Rojas to Denver during an Ultimate Frisbee tournament that they attended, and she had helped care for Silas and his little brother.

A custom photo book made for Ms. Morales Rojas by Lauren and Scott Cahr, who hired her to care for their children.

The family formed a deep bond, and the Cahrs created a custom photo book titled “The Adventures of Chanty and Gordo,” the nicknames Ms. Morales Rojas and their son called each other, as a parting gift.

“She is an amazing young woman who we were so lucky to have in our lives,” Ms. Cahr said. “We have tried to maintain a consistent relationship with her.”

Ms. Cahr has visited Ms. Morales Rojas in detention, while members of the Cahrs’ Ultimate Frisbee community have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help cover legal costs.

From the comments

1662

1. 

   Miriam Jordan

   Immigration reporter

   A couple weeks ago, I started hearing from sources that federal agents in plain clothes were arresting immigrants at airports. My colleague Hamed and I also began seeing videos on social media of such encounters. Lawyers said that their detained clients had been told they were deportable because they had overstayed visas. But many of them, including spouses of U.S. citizens, had active applications to obtain green cards, and they had government-issued work permits. They weren’t living in the shadows.

   1. 

      Miriam Jordan

      Immigration reporter

      Hamed obtained documents that confirmed this trend, and I kept learning about more arrests from immigration lawyers, ordinary travelers and an airline employee who witnessed arrests. It’s clear to us that airports have become a new front in the Trump administration’s deportation campaign, facilitated by information sharing between TSA and ICE.

Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.

Miriam Jordan reports from a grass roots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States.

Our Coverage of U.S. Immigration

---

• David Huerta: Federal prosecutors moved to dismiss their case against the Los Angeles labor leader, whose arrest during an immigration raid last year helped spur a wave of demonstrations against the Trump administration’s crackdown.

• ICE Contractor Faces Charges: The man, Brandon Booth, faces assault charges and was fired by the operator of the center, GEO Group, after shooting at protesters outside a Colorado detention center.

• More Detention Centers: A new complex in North Carolina signals that ICE remains determined to increase its detention capacity in a so-called detention desert.

• Attack on Federal Building: An Army veteran set a fire, ignited fireworks and waved an air rifle at passers-by outside a building in Lower Manhattan in an attack targeting federal immigration authorities, law enforcement officials said. He was taken into custody.

• Minnesota Immigration Laws: A judge in Minnesota said the state and local laws challenged by the administration did not impinge on federal authority, as the Justice Department had argued.

• Immigrant Caregivers Forced Out: Retirement communities already grappling with labor shortages are being forced to terminate caregivers at a time when more Americans are living longer.