King Trump Reigns Supreme in GOP

There is no “crack up” among the Republican Party base over President Donald J. Trump, a popular narrative that has been churning in the news media since 2016. However, this storyline has become especially magnified due to Trump’s plummeting overall approval rating of 36%, his failed policy agenda, rampant illegal activity within the administration, and a wholesale embrace of mass corruption since his second inauguration.

Several days before Thanksgiving, Trump pronounced on Truth Social that “The Republican Party has never been so UNITED AS IT iS RIGHT NOW!” This may sound like the typical Trump hyperbole and balderdash, but he is correct if we are considering the views of Republican Party voters and not just the handful of Beltway Republicans willing to talk off the record with Beltway reporters about their frustrations with the president and his chaotic administration.

 

Sure, folks like Senator Rand Paul and Representative Majorie Taylor Greene have been more assertive in their pushback to Trump as of late, but they are also a poor proxy for the mood of most Republicans in Congress who are alarmingly loyal to him and Republican voters who remain steadfast in their enchantment and compliance with Trump. Additionally, you have to consider that Paul has long criticized Trump going back to Trump’s aggressive takedown of Paul in the GOP debates of summer 2015 and Greene is unadulterated kook that makes the old John Birch Society look mainstream.

 

Yesterday, Axios released a report by Neal Rothschild bearing the headline, “Republican unity crumbles as America's mood sours.” The truth is that Republican Party unity with Trump and Trumpism seems unshakable when considering the party’s actual voting base. For full disclosure, Axios is one of my most preferred news sources about American politics and one that I recommend that my students use both inside and outside of my classes. My criticism of them here is less about what they are reporting and more so about how the narrative is being framed. Allow me to explain.

 

America under Trump 2.0 is a dog’s breakfast. The economy is faltering, consumer confidence stinks, inflation is running rampant, tariffs are causing prices to spike, the administration is engaged in illegal and dubious actives left and right, the president is routinely threatening nations that pose no threat to the United States, ICE is causing fear to permeate American communities, and poor GOP policy is causing health care premiums to spike for millions.

 

Despite all of this, actual GOP voters within the electorate are not abandoning—and I am willing to predict—will never abandon their hero and leader, Donald J. Trump.

 

A poll released by IPSOS on December 5, 2025 told us that Trump is the King of GOP Land:

• Over 80% of Republicans approve of Trump (see table below from IPSOS).
• Despite the hullaballoo of the past 11 months, only 7% of those who voted for Trump in 2024 regret that decision. This is mainly driven by non-whites and voters 18-39 who uncharacteristically backed Trump last year and have buyer’s remorse.
• 77% of all Republicans say they “personally identify with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) Movement,” the same percentage who said this upon Trump’s inauguration in January.

Trump’s problem is not with the Republican Party if you believe as I do that the concept of “the party” is defined by the party’s voters. With that segment of the electorate, he is rock-solid and likely to remain in that position. You can see this by the way in with Speaker Johnson and the congressional Republicans meekly follow his orders, candidates for GOP nominations in 2026 agonizingly kiss his rings and FIFA Peace Prize, and the Republican media machine lionizes him more than ever.

Realistically, Trump’s problems include hemorrhaging support among Independents who lean Republican, losing non-white and younger voters who defied past election practices and backed him in 2024, and those who seriously doubt his administration’s ability to make life in America more affordable as he promised would be done by his administration “on day one.”

 

As of December 2025, the Republican Party is still the Party of Trump. It is unified in support of the president, there is no evidence that the Republican electorate is wavering, and Trump will undoubtedly be his party’s key player when it comes to influencing GOP primaries in the 2026 midterm election cycle.