When a Rasmussen Reports pollster goes on Steve Bannon’s show and says Donald Trump is slipping with his own voters.
Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen’s top pollster, said during a Monday interview that Trump is “losing Republicans” because many supporters feel he has not delivered the kind of leadership they believed they were voting for.
“Donald Trump was ‘losing Republicans’ because he wasn’t giving them ‘what we voted for,’” Mitchell said, per Raw Story, adding that the frustration is coming not just from older voters but from younger Republicans who expected a far tougher approach from the president.
Mitchell explained that some of the messages he receives describe Trump falling short of a strongman image that supporters imagined during his campaigns.
“I’m just saying that they want their Franco,” Mitchell said, referring to Spain’s right-wing dictator Francisco Franco. “And I kind of think a lot of people thought Donald Trump would be that person. And so these things that we’ve seen have, you know, drawn blood. Donald Trump’s down to a negative 12 net approval rating, which puts him on par at about three months after COVID in the middle of the George Floyd riots.”
Bannon immediately stopped him, stating: “Slow down,” adding, “Did I just hear you say, Mark Mitchell, that they’re looking for their Franco and they don’t think Trump has turned out to be that?”
Mitchell didn’t back off.
“Well, you know, you poll, and then sometimes you read people’s responses, and I got a lot of DMs from disaffected MAGA people who are like, what is going on?” he said. “This is not what we voted for. And one of them said, I thought Trump was going to be our Franco.”
🚨NEW POLL🚨
President Donald Trump’s approval numbers took a massive dip.
43% of voters approve of his job performance, according to @Rasmussen_Poll.
The latest figures include 26% who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing and 45% who Strongly Disapprove. pic.twitter.com/c7pgUIzHwi
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) December 8, 2025
Mitchell stressed he wasn’t endorsing the comparison, but said the sentiment reflects a desire for someone who would “restore order and return the republic” in a much more forceful way.
Part of the disappointment, he argued, comes from Trump’s original promise to “drain the swamp,” a phrase that became a rallying cry during his first campaign.
“And we’re looking around and Donald Trump, in my opinion, ran very heavily on drain the swamp,” Mitchell said. “Well, that means fixing the systems that have failed us.”
Mitchell said the slipping support has been noticeable.
“But just now in the last two or three weeks, he’s losing Republicans now,” he said. “He had a 53% Republican strong approval, lowest of his term, not where you’d want it to be.”
The frustration he describes paints a picture of a base that is not just unhappy with individual decisions but questioning whether Trump is the forceful, take-charge figure they imagined he would be. For some, Mitchell said, the gap between their expectations and the reality of Trump’s second term has become impossible to ignore.
Rather than comparing him to Democrats or political opponents, certain voters are now holding Trump up against the kind of leader they believed he might emulate. And according to Mitchell, more than a few are asking the same thing: if Trump promised to shake up Washington, why does it feel like the old problems are still there?
