Why Blue-Collar Men in Swing States Should Worry Republicans

Colton Weaver, a 37-year-old mechanic in Beaumont, Texas, is the sort of working-class voter who helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency.

But when he casts his ballot on Tuesday, Weaver will be supporting a Democrat.

“I think it’s time to change what we’re doing now, and I think we need to move quickly,” he told the Daily Mail.

Across the country, other voters appear to be reaching a similar conclusion.

Exit polls indicate that Trump attracted roughly two-thirds of white voters without college degrees in each of his three presidential campaigns. Yet a New York Times poll now shows that fewer than half of those voters approve of his performance in office.

The blue-collar alliance that carried Trump to the White House in 2016 and remained with him in 2020 and 2024 could finally be showing signs of collapse.

Much of the frustration is tied to the economy and rising living costs, with the seemingly endless conflict with Iran adding to voters’ concerns.

The Trump administration is also facing intense backlash over its handling of the Epstein files. The anger extends into the MAGA movement, where podcaster Joe Rogan described the controversy as “a line in the sand” and accused officials of “trying to gaslight” voters.

Democrats believe the Epstein controversy is cutting through with working-class voters. In Kansas, the party has run advertisements accusing Republican Senator Roger Marshall of “protecting pedophiles” through his congressional votes and labeling him part of the “Epstein class.”

In Florida, Democrats invested heavily in a 30-second commercial aired during Game 3 of the World Series. The ad featured an Epstein survivor accusing Republican Senator Ashley Moody of “voting to protect the man who abused me.”

One of the clearest tests of Trump’s remaining influence with white working-class voters will come in Michigan’s Macomb County.

Macomb was the birthplace of the “Reagan Democrats” label, referring to white working-class voters who broke with the Democratic Party after decades of backing its candidates, a tradition that stretched back to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal in the 1930s.

Dwight Phillips, a Macomb County working-class voter, said he planned to support Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

“People are fed up with hearing the same old story,” Phillips told the Daily Mail. “They’re tired of Trump. People don’t just dislike him—they hate him—and they want new ideas, such as Medicare for all.”

Jeff Borja, a retired history teacher from the county, also backed Trump in 2016. This time, however, he is supporting El-Sayed.

Borja, 59, said he was disappointed by Trump’s first term, particularly the failure to ensure a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. “To me, that was embarrassing,” he said.

Borja now says policy is the deciding factor. He sees El-Sayed as the candidate most focused on easing financial pressure at home, while sharply rejecting the Republican approach to the economy.

‘The only people that suffer from tariffs are the citizens of this country,’ Borja noted.

In Sedgwick County, a key electoral area of Kansas, a deep red state where the Senate race is now a toss-up, the biggest issue for white working class men was affordability.

It came up again and again. 

Damien Gilbert, a 32-year-old union carpenter said his friends can no longer afford their lives. 

‘Everything is just getting more expensive, especially with this ridiculous war of choice. Now we can’t afford gas. Food keeps getting more expensive.’

It’s a sentiment replicated across the Midwest.

‘I’m a fast food worker, and I haven’t seen a raise in a year and a half,’ said Cody, a 32-year-old looking for work in Dayton, Ohio. 

‘I’m overqualified. It’s like there’s no real chance. Yeah, it’s hard for people to make it like an honest living.’

Tariffs are a big part of the frustration. 

Trump initially surfed a wave of anger in the industrial heartlands about the loss of  manufacturing in the aftermath of NAFTA, President Bill Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement.

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In his second term, blue collar workers backed Trump believing tariffs would bring jobs back.

But that faith has collapsed, with support plummeting 25 percentage points among blue-collar workers, according to the State of the American Worker Survey compiled by Echelon Insights. 

Now, just 36 percent back Trump on tariffs, while 58 percent are against them.

More than two-thirds of blue-collar workers believe tariffs have increased the cost of living for them, according to the survey.

Trump disillusion is far from universal. 

‘What everyone around me says is, we love Trump,’ said John Foret, 35, an electrician in Jefferson County, Texas, who’s spent eight years in the oil and gas industry.

Foret says former President Joe Biden ‘just didn’t care’ about blue collar workers, and that sentiment will prevent some from crossing into the Democratic column.  

‘I did the math, I don’t know the exact numbers (but) it seems like I have more money in my pocket, or they’re working toward me having more money in my pocket,’ Foret claimed.

‘Trump, in my eyes, seems to support the blue-collar worker and the men and women in this world who go out and make a living with their hands,’ he added.

This belief has pushed him into the column for Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Senate candidate in Texas who is depending on the Trump coalition to drag him over the finish line against Democrat James Talarico.  

At his final rally in Texas last week, before a largely male crowd Trump pitched ‘free oil’ from Venezuela promising it would come at zero cost. But it hasn’t had a dramatic impact on fuel prices, at least not yet. 

Some Republican strategists have questioned Trump’s rallying spree, suggesting his presence could put off independents.

But the White House is betting the math is on its side and that Trump can still inspire slightly disillusioned white working class males to the polls. 

In every one of the key Senate races, non-college educated voters are expected to make up over half the votes.

That is even though the proportion of college-educated voters tends to be about five points higher in midterms than in presidential elections.

But Trump’s approval is now at a record low – just 36 percent in the most recent New York Times survey.  

That leaves Republicans more reliant than ever on the white working class contingent, which are wavering. 

Maine voter James Cox, 38, who voted Republican in the past, told the Daily Mail that the Iran war has him second guessing his GOP support.

‘I want somebody who wants to stop the Iran war because it is impacting everybody here,’ he said. ‘It’s impacting everybody at the gas tank. It’s doubled over the past few months. It’s craziness. Everything’s just more expensive.’

But Trump has reportedly considered more strikes on Iran, potentially just after the midterm elections. His messaging on the war’s end has been muddled at best. 

The White House sees a completely different economic picture.

It argues it has produced more job growth than the Biden administration and that inflation-inflation-adjusted wages in blue-collar manufacturing jobs are up on average $2,400 per year.

‘Wages are rising faster than inflation, domestic manufacturing is expanding, and the blue-collar jobs lost under the Biden Administration are rightly returning back to US soil,’ reads a White House statement. 

But blaming Biden, who has been out of office for nearly two years, may not sell with voters who are desperately looking for a lifeline out of economic malaise. 

Economics Jordan McGillis and John Lettieri of the Economic Innovation Group put it bluntly in their analysis. 

On the cost of living, the issue workers care about most, they wrote, ‘workers say the president’s policies have made their problems worse.’

‘It’s the cost of living, stupid. Always was.’