The breakup of the popular Department of Government Efficiency from a near-daily shock-and-awe assault on the “swamp” to a weekly “update” on X has cost President Donald Trump support and trust from his Make America Great Again base and opened the door for others to raise their America First banner.
Several pollsters and MAGA insiders this week told Washington Secrets that the dismantling of the group once headed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk was the latest head-scratching move to frustrate the president’s voters.
DOGE CLOSES EIGHT MONTHS EARLY, BUT PRINCIPLES REMAIN ‘ALIVE AND WELL’
And the Trump administration’s explanation that DOGE lives on through auditors delegated to agencies has done little to bolster faith that Trump is focused on his campaign promises.
“DOGE and Elon Musk were both very popular among young voters, especially young men,” said Rich Baris, director of Big Data Poll and chairman of the National Association of Independent Pollsters. “Trying to sell them the idea that it was just in place until his appointees got into position at various agencies will be difficult, considering they don’t trust most of his appointees at all.”
This is why you have seen all the DeSantis supporters from the primary cheering on @realDonaldTrump as he made the wrong decisions, and actually accusing MAGA of disloyalty and not being MAGA.
That includes Charlie when he was still alive. https://t.co/Nz1FvXA9Bq
— Rich Baris The People’s Pundit (@Peoples_Pundit) November 24, 2025
“Younger voters — particular[ly] young men — voted for the existing systems to be blown up. DOGE represented the first real approach to shrinking the government they’d ever seen. With it gone, they don’t see how the government is operating any differently than it did before they elected Trump,” added Cygnal founder and pollster Brent Buchanan. “Republicans would be rewarded with getting hot and heavy back on shrinking government — drastically.”
Young men propelled Trump to the White House.
They despise the H1-B visa program b/c they know it’s displacing them from entry- and mid-level jobs.
It’s a replacement scam.
Per @cygnal, the GOP led w/ men 18-29 this summer +12; now it’s down -10 points.https://t.co/nhfZNw3LfZ
— Brent Buchanan, Pollster (@brentbuc) November 20, 2025
When DOGE was wowing the nation daily with tales of government waste and fraud, Trump’s approval among younger voters was 60%, according to Rasmussen Reports. Now it’s about 42% and DOGE uses Musk’s X to file a weekly “contracts update.”
DOGE, said Clyde Wayne Crews, the regulation czar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “was always the sizzle, not the steak.”
Republican pollster John McLaughlin suggested critics take a breath and give the administration space to show its next step. “DOGE was a means to an end — cutting waste, fraud, and abuse,” he said. “The end is still the same. President Trump and his entire administration is focused on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. Now it’s up to his Cabinet secretaries to continue acting on what DOGE found.”
“Much of what DOGE found has yet to be completed and communicated to set a foundation for the midterms,” McLaughlin added. “Let the big government Democrat socialists defend waste, fraud, and abuse. Great issue for the midterms. Time to continue the offense.”
The president’s problem with supporters is deeper than DOGE fading away, however.
Instead of seeing Trump working through his broad America First agenda, as he did in his first months back in office, often with Musk at his side, some supporters see a scattered approach and grabs at the latest hot topics in polls, such as turkey prices. Others are depressed by his attention to foreign wars, allowance of Chinese immigrant work visas, and embrace of corporate America.
Rasmussen pollster Mark Mitchell last week met with Trump in the Oval Office to go over the president’s slumping numbers. Mitchell said, “The real problem, and it’s not turkey prices, I told them the number to focus on is that only 27% of Americans, I think this was out of my battleground poll, only 27% of Americans think today’s children will be better off than their parents. That’s the [statistic] you want to focus on.”
He recommended that the president refocus on a new “Fight, Fight, Fight” campaign with a populist economic and government-slashing message as they head into the congressional midterm elections in 2026.
Drain the Swamp – how hard is this? pic.twitter.com/JF3YNAY9Iw
— Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen Reports (@honestpollster) November 25, 2025
“It’s going to take a Manhattan Project to win, and that means that they need people in the White House with a whiteboard, like, working 24/7 to message the right things and do the right things,” Mitchell said. “It’s like, yeah, you can’t fix the American dream in six months, but give people a reason to vote for Republicans next fall. I said that, you know, the ‘Contract With America’ was really smart. You should have the ‘Fight, Fight, Fight’ plan for America and stop fight, fight, fighting your own party. And you should do like the [late conservative activist] Charlie Kirk economic populism plan. You should drain the swamp for real this time. The third one was this aspect of corporatism, where it’s like people hate the federal government. That’s why you won, and people hate corporations even more. They want to drink billionaire tears.”
He and others said that the popularity of Trump’s America First campaign remains strong, so much so that it’s likely other politicians will run on it.
After this week’s headlines about DOGE hit, for example, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said on X, “DOGE fought the Swamp and the Swamp won.”
Said Mitchell, “He’s running on Trump’s failed promises already.”
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Part of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) resignation message was urging Republicans to get back on the MAGA express or face defeat. “It’s worse than people inside the bubble know when you talk to real Americans outside the wicked snow globe of Washington, D.C.,” she said on X.
Fact check true but it’s worse than people inside the bubble know when you talk to real Americans outside the wicked snow globe of Washington DC.
Myself and many of my colleagues came courageously roaring into 2025 with legislation that matched the 2024 electoral mandate only to… https://t.co/YV8L7gjRAJ
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
(@RepMTG) November 24, 2025
“What is the convincing message for 2026 and likely 2028? It will be the American people asking candidates, ‘What tangible thing have you done for me and how did it or will it make my life better?’” she added.