And you may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?

The single biggest political asset Trump brought with him into the 2024 election — the heavily Mark Burnett-influenced idea that he was an effective steward of the economy — is vanishing even among his base:

The last time President Trump faced a midterm election, in 2018, congressional Republicans were dragged down by his unpopularity and lost more than three dozen House seats.

But even in defeat, the bottom never truly fell out for the Republicans that year — the party actually gained ground in the Senate — as working-class white voters largely kept their faith in Mr. Trump’s economic know-how.

Today, that once-deep reservoir of good will has largely evaporated.

Blue-collar white voters are, for the first time, seriously doubting Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy. A review of polling by The New York Times shows an extraordinary swing on that issue among white voters without college degrees between his first midterm election and now.

Then, working-class white voters approved of his management of the economy by margins of 30 percentage points or even more. Now, recent polls show them disapproving by anywhere from 14 to more than 30 points.

Mr. Trump’s approval on the economy has dropped across practically every group. But his cratering support among a loyal demographic that has served as the foundation of his political coalition for a decade has the potential to be among the most consequential developments of 2026, according to interviews with strategists in both parties who are involved in the midterms.

Polls now regularly show that a majority of white voters who did not graduate from college no longer approve of Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy. Examples of his low ratings include polls from Fox News (33 percent approval), CBS News (39 percent), NPR/PBS/Marist (40 percent), CNN (43 percent) and The New York Times/Siena College (47 percent).

In other words, he has lost the faith of his most loyal supporters on the year’s most pressing issue.

The Republican solution to this is to hope that messaging can cover up the fact that Trump is offering less than nothing to these voters other than promises that the seventh-best player on a junior high school volleyball team might get kicked off the roster somewhere.

To reiterate, partisan identification is very stubborn, including among nominal independents, and this does not portend any major short-term realignment. But it doesn’t take that many WWC voters staying home or deciding that their state and/or local candidate isn’t an America-hating communist like Kamala or Uncle Joe Brandon to create a very serious problem for Republicans in 2026. And I think there are real questions about how a Republican candidate who hasn’t been propped up as a fake successful businessman on reality TV will fare in similar circumstances.