James Carville wasn't horsing around. The famed Democratic strategist said attending the Kentucky Derby convinced him that "buyer's remorse" was growing among Donald Trump voters.
Carville's Observations at the Derby
"It's not just that the polling is bad; you can feel it," Carville said on "Politics War Room" Thursday. "You can just see the anger coming from people that you ... would never expect." He added, "I saw it at the Kentucky Derby."
Carville described sitting with James Williams Jr., the general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Williams informed him that most union members voted for Trump, but "they got real buyer's remorse now, which I think is a good sign," Carville said.
Evidence of Remorse Across Demographics
"I mean, now we know that young people have real buyer's remorse. We know that there's real buyer's remorse among Hispanics. Apparently, among blue-collar people, it's pretty substantial," Carville noted.
Carville's podcast co-host, Al Hunt, shared a similar experience. While riding the train between Washington and New York, he was approached by a half-dozen strangers asking, "When are we gonna get rid of this guy?" Two of them volunteered that they had voted for Trump.
Polling and Economic Factors
Trump's approval ratings have ranged between 34% to 45% in recent polling, according to a New York Times aggregation of surveys. The ongoing war that Trump started against Iran has jacked up fuel prices and other costs, angering some of his MAGA base because the president vowed to avoid foreign conflicts on the campaign trail. While Hispanic voters' approval ratings of Trump did sink, they have been on the rebound, according to new polling.
