Ten months into Donald Trump’s second term, some of the very voters who helped put him back in the White House are already having second thoughts. In a new NBC News Deciders focus group of 14 Trump supporters under 30, a clear majority said they now disapprove of his job performance, citing hard-line immigration moves, tariff pain at home, and a whiplash approach to transparency.
The session, conducted by the Engagious/Sago project that partners with NBC, captured a generational vibe shift – a ‘nosedive’ in support stemming from regret, frustration, and the sense that real-world costs are catching up with the culture-war show.
Nine of the 14 participants, a mix of Republicans and independents, told moderators they disapprove of Trump’s performance so far. Several said the administration’s mass-deportation push crossed a line from “tough” to “needlessly cruel,” with one Pennsylvania independent arguing it means “taking a bunch of immigrants, even if they are innocent, and throwing them back to God knows where.” Others objected to Trump’s administration’s foreign-policy that, in their view, hasn’t delivered tangible wins.
The economy is the other friction point. Young workers and families say they are feeling the tariff surge in daily life, from car parts to furniture. “The tariffs have been a little counterintuitive,” one Arizona independent said, describing how higher parts prices were squeezing her husband’s auto sales. That complaint has a policy backdrop: the administration’s second-term tariff wave, which in recent weeks expanded to fresh categories like timber, lumber and certain upholstered wood goods, putting new duties on everyday items.
The split is striking because Trump did make inroads with young voters in 2024. While the youth vote still leaned blue overall, post-election analyses show a meaningful shift toward Trump compared to 2020. NBC’s exit-poll roundups noted the movement among 18-to-29-year-olds even as Kamala Harris maintained an edge with that group, and Tufts University’s CIRCLE research likewise found youth support narrowed but did not flip. In other words, Trump improved with Gen Z and younger Millennials in 2024, but it wasn’t a landslide and some of that support appears to be eroding.
What’s driving the “nosedive” talk? For several under-30 Trump voters, it’s the gap between campaign rhetoric and governing reality. A few in the NBC ‘Deciders’ group blamed the White House for mixed messages on hot-button investigations and for leaning on executive muscle more than promised. Others said their communities are absorbing the collateral damage of sweeping policies, from mass removals to universal-style tariffs that don’t feel surgical.
And it’s not just this one panel. In a separate round of interviews highlighted this week, disillusioned young Trump voters told reporters they now see a streak of “dictatorship” in the administration’s approach, especially around deportations. Even some who still back strict enforcement said the execution feels “way too aggressive,” a tone that risks alienating the very voters who swung toward Trump last year.
Among the 14, only one said they’d switch to Harris if they could re-cast their 2024 vote; most are shopping for a different kind of Trump rather than a different party. But the warning lights are flashing: if rising costs tied to tariffs keep biting, and if immigration crackdowns keep generating unsettling images, the tenuous coalition Trump built with younger voters could fray further. NBC’s exit-poll data shows youth margins are narrow enough that a small swing matters, especially in the battlegrounds that decided 2024.
