‘The shine’s come off’: Disillusioned Trump voters put deep-red state in play

CNN’s John King traveled to rural Ohio – deep-red MAGA country – and found many of President Donald Trump‘s supporters were losing their enthusiasm.

The chief national correspondent spoke to disillusioned Trump voters in Portsmouth, and they told King that Trump’s war in Iran and the downstream effects on the country’s affordability crisis had soured them on his second presidency.

“I am pro-military, and I am – we have a strong need to protect this country,” said Dale King, an Iraq war veteran and gym owner. “I know there are threats and I know there are enemies that want to see the downfall of this country. But you can’t can’t be flippant about war.”

The combat veteran told the reporter he’s planning to vote Democratic in this year’s election to send Republicans a message, and he said conversations with friends and fellow veterans had convinced him that change was coming.

“The shine’s kind of coming off the the Trump presidency,” he said. “[You] really kind of see through the true core of who he is versus what he campaigned on.”

His comments were indicative of the correspondent’s interviews with other Trump voters in Scioto County, and King’s colleague Dana Bash summed up the report as “fascinating.”

“So many different characters with so many different perspectives,” Bash said. “But the overall takeaway is the president and Republicans, they’re in trouble there.”

King said those findings should be a wakeup call for Republicans.

“Ohio is in play for the first time in a decade,” King said. “That’s all you have to say to tell you the president and his party are in trouble because it’s been simply off the map. Now it takes more for Democrats to win in Ohio. Trump won 81 of 88 counties in 2024, so be skeptical of Democratic chances. You need a lot more people to peel off than you do, say, in a Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, the states that are 50-50, because Trump has stretched it out so much there. But you see the Iraq war veteran there, you see some other Trump voters there who have some doubts.”

“Here’s the other big issue, affordability,” he added. “In half of Ohio’s 88 counties, half the cost, your costs are outpacing your wages by higher than the national average. So you drive through and a lot of that, guess what it is? A lot of that is rural America, Trump country, where your groceries, your energy, your housing, your other costs are already up, and now, as we talked about earlier, you’re dealing with energy, gas, fuel.”