President Trump has an extraordinary grip on the Republican Party, but over the last few months there have been more signs of dissent — even from within MAGA itself.
This week’s New York Times/Siena poll shows that foreign policy issues have driven a surprising generational split within the Republican coalition — defined here as either self-identified Republicans or independents who lean Republican or who don’t lean toward either party and voted for Mr. Trump in 2024.
More broadly, only 33 percent of the Republican coalition younger than 45 wants to see the next Republican presidential candidate follow Mr. Trump’s lead, compared with 60 percent who want to see the party head in a new direction.
Of course, this dissent isn’t anywhere close enough to loosen Mr. Trump’s grip on his party. More than three-quarters of the Republican coalition approve of his performance as president overall, and a clear majority of voters want to see the next Republican presidential candidate follow his lead. At a glance, it looks like the same lock-step Republican support that’s been evident over the last decade.
But the dissent among young Republican voters is pretty different. And it’s been given voice by prominent recent critics, like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who aren’t “Never Trumpers” but former allies who say Mr. Trump hasn’t fulfilled his promise to put America first.
On almost every foreign policy question asked in the poll, the 18-to-44-year-old segment of the Republican coalition takes a dissenting view:
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A majority disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of the war in Iran, and only 40 percent say he made the right decision in choosing to attack Iran.
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Only 33 percent support providing additional economic and military support to Israel, compared with 72 percent of those 45 and over.
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A majority — 54 percent — say Mr. Trump has been “too supportive of Israel” compared with 16 percent of those 45 and over.
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Nearly three-quarters say America should pay less attention to problems overseas, compared with 40 percent of Republicans 45 and over.
This opposition isn’t mostly about young Republicans wanting the party to be less conservative more generally. While younger Republican supporters are less likely to identify as conservative, only 28 percent said the Republican Party is too far to the right, compared with 16 percent of those 45 and over.
Similarly, a majority said the next Republican candidate should follow Mr. Trump’s lead on immigration. Younger Republican supporters were also the most likely to say that the declining white share of the population was bad for society.
Taken together, the group’s attitudes do seem to track with the prominent podcasters who have defected from Mr. Trump in recent months. Those with a “very favorable” view of Mr. Carlson say they want the next Republican presidential nominee to take the party in a new direction by a margin of 59 percent to 35 percent.
This is not necessarily because these younger voters closely follow these media personalities: Only 40 percent of younger Republican supporters have a favorable view of Mr. Carlson, and just 12 percent say the same about the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. It just means there’s a potentially significant constituency within the Republican coalition that harbors similar views. And as these voters gradually represent a larger share of the Republican Party, they might ultimately bend the party their way.
You can read the full story on our findings among Republican-leaning voters and Trump voters here, along with the cross-tabs here.
Nate Cohn is The Times’s chief political analyst. He covers elections, public opinion, demographics and polling.
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