Donald Trump raked in $2.2 billion in 2025, and a new poll finds that 34% of Republicans think he is using the presidency to make himself rich. The gas he swore would cost less than $2 a gallon now costs more than double that. With the midterms less than two weeks away, his party is trying to win an election by changing the subject from the one thing voters keep bringing up.
The Billionaire Got Richer, The Voters Got Groceries
Let's start with the numbers, because the numbers are doing most of the work here. According to The Guardian's editorial board, Trump pulled in $2.2 billion in 2025, with his official position and his personal business interests overlapping constantly. That is the part nobody is surprised by.
What's new is who has noticed. A poll this week found that 66% of all American voters think he is using the presidency to enrich himself. More striking, 34% of Republicans agree. One in three members of his own party looked at the man who promised to make their lives better and concluded he is mostly making his own life better.
A separate Fox News poll last week put government corruption at the top of voters' list of concerns, just ahead of inflation and high prices. Fox News. The network that spent a decade treating Trump like a founding father with a spray tan. Their own viewers are listing corruption as a top-two problem.
Promises Made, Promises Gas-Pumped
Trump's pitch was simple. Vote for me and you'll be better off. He promised to lower grocery prices. They have risen again. He promised to push gasoline below $2 a gallon. It now costs more than double that, thanks to what the Guardian calls his reckless and illegal war on Iran.
Then there are the tariffs, which have bumped up the cost of living on top of everything else. Incumbents always suffer when the economy sours, and that part is just politics. But the gap here is unusual. The man at the top is personally cashing in while the people who elected him pay more for eggs and fuel.
The editorial puts it well. The billionaires are better off. The rest are not. And the distance between his prosperity and his base's daily life now looks less like an inspiration and more like an insult.
A 36 Percent Approval Rating and a Red State Tour
Trump's popularity sank to a record low of 36% in a poll on Wednesday. He is not on the ballot, which is the only reason Republicans can still pretend this is someone else's problem. But he is touring red states anyway, trying to shore up the vote in places where a Democratic win looked laughable two years ago.
Laughable is not the word anymore. With less than a fortnight until November 3 and many votes already cast, polls suggest Democrats will take the House and could well claim the Senate. Strong candidates are outperforming expectations in Texas and Kansas, which are not places where Democrats usually get to feel hopeful.
The Democratic Party itself is still unpopular. That has not stopped it from becoming more trusted on economic issues, which is the exact lane Trump used to own. Independents are drifting away from him, and plenty of Republicans seem too unenthused to care.
Even the MAGA Pollster Says He Did This to Himself
When your own side starts writing your obituary, you have a problem. Rich Baris, a pollster the Guardian describes as Maga-sympathetic, argued that "Donald Trump did this to himself."
The logic is brutal and correct. His base believed Trump was their champion, a guy who would go to Washington and fight for people who felt ignored. Now, Baris suggests, they suspect he is just another politician. Worse, he is a politician who got spectacularly rich while they were checking the price of milk.
That is a different kind of damage from the usual partisan noise. You can survive attacks from your enemies. It is much harder to survive your own voters quietly deciding you were never really on their team.
Circuses Without Bread
Republicans are still trying the old playbook. They are massively outspending Democrats. They are running culture war attacks and salacious lies about opponents like James Talarico in Texas. They are pointing at unrest in France and warning that a Democratic Congress would bring chaos to America.
So far, it is not landing the way it used to. The Guardian's read is that the slogan from the last presidential race, that Kamala Harris "is for they/them, President Trump is for you," falls apart when voters think he is actually for himself and his friends. You cannot sell a populist champion who is visibly cashing checks.
And so we get the strategy of changing the subject. Democrats keep hammering the economy. Republicans keep reaching for something shinier, up to and including cage fights on the White House South Lawn. That is a literal circus. Meanwhile voters are asking where the bread went.
The Dingo Take
The White House will tell you the economy is thriving and the president is delivering for working Americans. The facts say gas costs more than double what he promised, groceries are climbing again, tariffs are hiking prices, and the man himself pulled in $2.2 billion in a single year. One of those stories is true, and it is not the one coming from the podium.
The cruelest part is who is noticing. This is not a bunch of liberal pundits grumbling. It is a third of Republicans, a Fox News poll, and a MAGA-friendly pollster all arriving at the same conclusion: the guy who said he was one of us turned out to be one of them. When your own base starts calling you a regular politician, you have lost something no ad budget can buy back.
Don't get cocky, though. Democrats have been burned before, and the party is still unpopular on its own merits. The midterms are not a referendum on how great Democrats are. They are a referendum on whether people feel richer than they did two years ago. Right now, the answer seems to be no, and the only person who got what he promised is the one who was already a billionaire.
Comments