What do longitudinal panel studies say about individual voters switching away from Trump since inauguration compared with cross-sectional polls?
Executive summary
Longitudinal panel studies — which re-interview the same people over time — show that the vast majority of individual voters who backed Donald Trump have remained with him since inauguration, with only a modest minority “switching away,” while cross-sectional polls often portray larger apparent movement because they measure different samples at different times and are sensitive to turnout and framing effects [1] 2024/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[2]. Longitudinal research from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group and academic analyses of election cohorts find pockets of regret (notably among “Obama-to-Trump” voters) and modest aggregate shifts in party identification, but confirm high individual-level persistence compared with the variability implied by snapshot polls [3] [4] 2020-presidential-election/54A7D26C371AC3CE26AD78D866695A17" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[5].
1. Why longitudinal panels give a different story than cross‑sectional snapshots
Longitudinal panels follow the same respondents across waves, so they directly measure whether specific people abandon a candidate or party; Democracy Fund’s VOTER panel, for example, re-interviewed thousands who had answered in prior years and reported that most partisan opinions actually hardened rather than softened in the first two years after inauguration [1], a conclusion echoed in academic longitudinal analyses that focus on vote switching and turnout changes across the Trump presidency [5]. Cross-sectional polls — the kind grist for daily headlines — sample new respondents each day or month and therefore mix genuine opinion change with changes in who is responding, differential turnout, and short-term reactions to events; that explains why repeated snapshots can suggest larger, noisier swings than panels detect [2].
2. What the panels actually found about “switchers” away from Trump
Democracy Fund’s Voter Study Group reported that while some voter types moved noticeably — most prominently “Obama-to-Trump” voters, who registered the highest levels of regret and shifted their partisan ID substantially — the overall electorate showed only modest movement toward Republicans in aggregate and strong stability within partisan blocs [3] [4]. Pew and related panel-based work looking at the 2024 cycle find that 85 percent of Trump’s 2020 voters cast their ballots for him again in 2024, meaning actual individual vote-switching away from Trump was limited relative to the impression from many cross‑sectional snapshots [2]. Academic longitudinal work that traces turnout and vote choice across 2016–2020 likewise highlights that much of electoral change came from mobilization differences and new/returning voters, not mass defections among core supporters [5].
3. Who did change, and why panels matter for interpreting that change
Panels isolate subgroups that genuinely shifted: Democracy Fund research documents that Obama-to-Trump voters were more likely to regret their choice and to move toward the GOP or away from the Democratic label over time, a complex pattern that panels can parse because they track past and present identifiers [3] [4]. Panels also reveal that shifts sometimes reflect deeper realignment — e.g., long-term partisan reidentification among certain cohorts — rather than ephemeral disapproval spikes; without panels, cross-sectional polls risk conflating temporary discontent with durable switching [4] [5].
4. How cross‑sectional polls shape public perception and their limits
High-frequency cross-sectional polls — such as national approval snapshots reported in major outlets — can show approval downswings or recoveries (examples summarized in recent press pieces), but they do not directly tell whether those changes come from individual switching, turnout, or sampling differences [6] [7]. The Emerson and New York Times snapshots capture shifts in overall approval and attitude toward priorities [7] [6], yet by themselves they cannot substitute for panel analyses that demonstrate the degree to which the same voters defected, stayed loyal, or abstained [2].
5. Bottom line, caveats, and competing narratives
The best available panel work says individual-level defections from Trump since inauguration were limited: most of his prior voters stayed with him, while change concentrated in identifiable subgroups (notably Obama-to-Trump voters) and was amplified by turnout and mobilization dynamics rather than wholesale switching [3] [4] [2]. That conclusion sits alongside a competing narrative based on cross-sectional headlines about slippage in approval that can be true in aggregate terms but misleading if read as mass personal defections; readers should weigh the longitudinal evidence more heavily when the question is “did individuals switch” because panels directly answer that question [1] [5]. Reporting organizations have agendas too — panels backed or hosted by groups like the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group bring scholarly rigor but also particular framing choices — and the academic literature warns that both designs are useful but answer different questions [8] [5].