Trump isn’t just facing a backlash. He is caught in something much bigger than that
In Western democracies, discontentedness remains, but is slowly decoupling from the politicians that once profited from it.
Hereabouts, exercise caution. You probably don’t need me to tell you how slippery US polling has been in the past decade. Sometimes they underestimate the Republican vote – especially Trump’s personal vote in presidential elections – and sometimes they undersell the Democrats. The Economist carried a fascinating analysis last week that found that heavily red states are consistently redder than the polls suggest, and heavily blue states bluer. Normally that doesn’t matter because the result is foregone. But if it holds true this time, we’ll see Democrat hopes dashed in places like Iowa or South Carolina. And Democrat hope restored in places like Maine and New Hampshire.
Similarly, British politics is experiencing some strange conditions. Partly, that’s about Reform’s season of scandal: suspect donations, and elected representatives calling Asians “parasites” and black children “animals” – all of which led to high-profile sackings and suspensions. There’s good reason to believe this pushed once-disillusioned Tories back home. But Reform might be suffering in another way too. One theory is that its recent influx of Tory conversions has completely undermined its outsider status. Reform never pitched itself as a kind of Tory party-in-exile. Once it becomes that, there is less reason for its existence.
Meanwhile, Labour has a prime minister who seems newer than Nigel Farage. Perhaps even more of an outsider. Andy Burnham wasn’t even in the parliament until June.
He was parachuted in via a byelection for the express purpose of unseating Keir Starmer and becoming prime minister. It would be too much of a stretch to call Burnham an insurgent. But he’s not continuity, either.
He gives the disillusioned a way of listening again, and hearing things afresh. You see the hints of this in the polling of people who didn’t vote in 2024. Until recently, Reform owned these people, having support from 63 per cent of them.
Now they have only 26 per cent of them, while Labour now claims almost as many, on 22 per cent.
None of this is quite the empire striking back. It is more the desire for change assuming a different shape. In America, the anti-incumbent mood is clear. Trump, as the chief incumbent, is now a lightning rod for dissent. The looming swings are starkest in places he won comfortably, and are dampened in seats the Democrats are meant to win. In Britain, the title of incumbent has become far more ambiguous. But Labour’s fortunes seem to have risen the less incumbency it exuded, and Reform’s case is the reverse.
