Charles Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This is a level of […] midterm blowback against an incumbent president of the sort that we haven’t seen since 1974. […] It’s really pretty historic and in a completely different league than 2018.

The young men and Hispanic and Latino voters who helped propel Donald Trump to his presidential victory in 2024 swung sharply towards the Democrats in the midterm elections, contributing to the historic defeat for Republicans.

Credits

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

The scale of the Republicans’ defeat goes beyond the usual midterm backlash against a sitting president, Hunt says. He draws a comparison with the 1974 midterm elections following the Watergate scandal and then-President Richard Nixon’s resignation:

Charles Hunt, an associate professor of political science at Boise State University in Idaho, tells The Conversation Weekly podcast that the results suggest weakened support for Trump and his MAGA movement among these key groups of voters.

The AP Voter Poll, a sweeping survey of voters across all 50 states, shows Democrats regaining ground among young and Hispanic voters, too.

That’s really, really significant, especially since that’s a growing part of the electorate.

Newsclips in this episode from Fox News, WCNC, CBS Pittsburgh and MS Now.

Not just back towards where they were in, say, 2018 or 2020 in terms of support for Democrats, but past that – being more supportive of folks like James Talarico in Texas than they have been of any Democrat in the last 20 years.

But those pressures also gave force to Democratic messaging about corruption and an economy favouring billionaires. He adds:

I think those issues tie together with a lot of Democratic messaging around things like corruption, and the influence of billionaires, and Elon Musk spending half a billion dollars in this election probably did not help, at the end of the day.

So what drove voters towards the Democrats?

Hispanic and Latino voters “swung heavily towards Trump in 2024”, Hunt says. But midterm results in Florida, Texas and elsewhere “are showing these voters just slingshotting completely in the other direction,” he explains, citing early exit polls and analysis by The New York Times.

Disclosure statement

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Justin Bergman, Gemma Ware and executive producer Grace Jennings-Edquist. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

A lot of political science tells us that economic issues are almost always front of mind for voters.

The New York Times’ analysis of voting trends reveals young voters swung back toward the Democratic Party by more than 30 percentage points – the largest shift of any age group. Young men, in particular, swung strongly back towards the Democrats.

Economic pressures are one reason, Hunt says. He points to the effects of the Iran war and tariffs, particularly on highly visible costs such as petrol:

The post Young men and Latino voters helped drive the Democrats’ blue wave. Why did they abandon Trump? appeared first on MASSIVE News.

Adhikari and Democrats give credit to Kennedy for redirecting attention to these issues, which have broad support among voters.

“Americans’ concerns about chronic disease and food safety, especially that which is linked to corporate influence over environmental regulation and public health, are legitimate and long overdue for a serious legislative response,” the House Democrat’s policy document reads. “The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has galvanized a significant segment of the Republican Party and attracted many previously apolitical and non-traditional voters, yet many of the concerns raised by the movement are bipartisan in nature.”

A KFF poll in May found that 75 percent of Americans want stricter regulations on food additives—a prominent MAHA priority—and 64 percent want stricter regulation of pesticides in agriculture, another key MAHA agenda item.

But, Kennedy and the Trump administration have not only failed to deliver on these issues, they have spoiled the movement, using “the legitimate concerns of American consumers about food safety to spread misinformation about vaccines, public health, and science,” the policy document reads. “Their rhetoric has systematically led to the erosion of trust in public health, the science community, and decreased vaccination rates, leading to fatal outbreaks in some cases.”

Possible political shift

Democrats intend to reclaim the popular health and environmental issues, free of Kennedy’s corrosive anti-science rhetoric. The document outlines plans to restore regulations that protect clean water and air damaged by the Trump administration, advance policies to keep toxic substances out of food, and further Food is Medicine policies, which provide produce prescriptions to American families to improve nutrition and health.

Adhikari predicts a political shift. “I increasingly think MAHA’s most unexpected legacy may be pushing Democrats back toward their own roots: challenging corporate power, fighting dangerous chemicals in our food supply, and holding toxic polluters accountable,” she wrote.

The post Is MAHA dying—or will it be reborn? What’s next after crushing midterm losses? appeared first on MASSIVE News.