more difficult than initially expected<\/a>, a change fueled in large part by voters\u2019 persistent economic anxieties. It\u2019s easier for the British voters who elected Starmer in 2024 to move to a different party in the country\u2019s multiparty system, but disaffected Trump voters have no real choice.<\/p>\nTrump\u2019s rise to the White House in 2016 was powered by a coalition that included independents, disengaged voters and Americans who felt alienated from the political establishment. They helped him again in 2024.<\/p>\n
Republicans trying to stave off a difficult midterms have since warned that the biggest danger for the party in November is not that those voters suddenly defect, but that they become disillusioned enough to simply not vote. It\u2019s a turnout election, strategists and candidates from both parties keep saying, that will likely come down to whether Trump voters show up for the party even when he\u2019s not on the ballot.<\/p>\n
What they\u2019re less worried about is Democrats finding a way to move large numbers of persuadable, frustrated Republican voters back into the fold, or to pick up steadfast partisans. That\u2019s true even as voters keep making clear that they\u2019re looking for change.<\/p>\n
The POLITICO Poll reveals just how deep the sense of cynicism and pessimism runs among voters in both countries. In the U.S., 71 percent of adults say politicians only look out for themselves, including 79 percent of those who backed Harris in 2024 and 71 percent who voted for Trump.<\/p>\n
There are similar frustrations in the U.K., where majorities of voters blame the politicians \u2014 not the system \u2014 for the country\u2019s current political problems. In a poll conducted earlier this month by London-based Public First, a 45 percent plurality of U.K. adults say that the country keeps changing prime ministers because none of them are any good.<\/p>\n
But the analysis from Public First finds an important distinction in how voters in the two countries channel their frustration at the ballot box. British voters appear much more willing to cross party lines.<\/p>\n
In the U.K., the Labour Party rode to power in part by tapping into the support from cynical voters. But two years later, the Labour Party is hemorrhaging supporters. Fewer than half \u2014 49 percent \u2014 of those who voted with the Labour Party in 2024 plan to do so again, while 13 percent plan to vote for the Green Party to its left and 13 percent for leading hard-right party Reform U.K., while the rest are divided among other parties or unsure according to The POLITICO Poll.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are seeing, particularly since Brexit over in the U.K., is a dissatisfaction in what was never formally a two-party system, but had been a de facto two-party system pretty much since 1916,\u201d said Shanahan.<\/p>\n
The Conservative Party \u2014 the Tories, the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher that battled with Labour for a century \u2014 has fallen out of favor, losing support to Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform U.K. party. That break is similar to the MAGA vs. traditional Republican split in the United States \u2014 but the two-party American system forces the GOP to stay together in an at-times tense coalition on the right, while British voters can simply switch from Conservative to Reform.<\/p>\n
That also spells trouble on the left for Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted and who is eager to quash an internal revolt that could eventually lead to his ouster. The Makerfield by-election on Thursday will determine whether Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and Starmer\u2019s chief internal rival, is elected as Labour\u2019s representative in Parliament, giving him the chance to challenge Starmer for the party leadership and potentially replace him as prime minister.<\/p>\n
“As the electoral politics of the U.K. fragments, it can only take a few thousand cynical voters in each of a few hundred constituencies to switch a majority to a devastating defeat,\u201d said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, POLITICO\u2019s polling partner. \u201cThis is how, in 2024, Labour got into government with fewer votes than it got in 2019, and why most election modelling would now say they’ve lost that majority as quickly as they gained it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The POLITICO Poll in June found 64 percent of U.K. adults say they don\u2019t trust Starmer and, in a separate question, 62 percent say he is not someone who keeps his promises. Labour suffered massive losses in last month\u2019s elections, prompting the calls from Starmer\u2019s own MPs for him to be replaced.<\/p>\n
But as Starmer stares down that threat \u2014 fueled by some of the very voters who elected him into office in the first place \u2014 the challenges before Trump and the GOP are much different.<\/p>\n
In the U.S., even the most cynical and disaffected voters still tend to stick with their party identities. Even among non-MAGA Republicans \u2014 the conservatives least loyal to the president, who do not self-identify with his MAGA movement and ideology \u2014 highly cynical voters are just as likely to stick with the GOP in the midterms as less cynical voters are, according to Public First.<\/p>\n
“In the U.K., voters who are dissatisfied with the main party tend to have a third or even fourth option. In the U.S., they have one alternative, or the option to not show up,\u201d Wride said.<\/p>\n
Poll after poll shows early signs of Trump\u2019s 2024 coalition fracturing, on issues including the cost of living and the Iran war, but when faced with the prospect of choosing between one main party on the left and one on the right, voters tend to hold their noses and pick the same one they have before.<\/p>\n