New Polling Reveals Deep Divides Inside the GOP’s Expanding Coalition

Findings highlight a cohesive core and less stable outer ring. 

NEW YORK, NY – A new Manhattan Institute survey offers one of the most exhaustive looks to date at the emerging multi-ethnic, working-class GOP and how it differs from the pre-2016 Republican Party. It pulls from a national survey of nearly 3,000 voters — including large oversamples of black and Hispanic Republicans and/or 2024 Trump voters — to examine the coalition assembled by Donald Trump in 2024 and the future of the Republican Party after his presidency.  

For this analysis, Current GOP refers to (1) all 2024 Trump voters, regardless of party registration, and (2) all registered Republicans, including those who did not vote for Trump. To understand the structure of this coalition more precisely, the Trump/GOP electorate is divided into two analytically distinct blocs:

• Core Republicans (65%)—longstanding GOP voters who have consistently backed Republican presidential nominees since 2016 or earlier; and
• New Entrant Republicans (29%)—recent first-time GOP presidential voters, including those who supported Democrats in 2016 or 2020 or were too young to vote in cycles before 2020.

Key insights include: 

• Core Republicans remain consistently conservative across economic, foreign-policy, and social issues and are strongly hawkish on China, pro-Israel, and skeptical of progressive agendas on transgender and DEI issues. 

• New Entrant Republicans are younger, more racially diverse, and markedly less conservative on most major policy questions, including taxes and spending, immigration, DEI, transgender policy, and foreign policy toward Israel and China. They are more likely to tolerate or personally report racist or antisemitic views (32%), more likely to endorse multiple conspiracy theories (34%), and more likely to say political violence can be justified (54%). Yet these individuals overwhelmingly identify as Republican, voted for Donald Trump in 2024, and strongly support the President’s performance.  

• Overall, 83% of the Current GOP reject racism, antisemitism, and conspiratorial thinking in politics, but 17% are found to be anti-Jewish Republicans.  

• Levels of anti-Jewish sentiment are slightly higher among Democrats (20%) than among Republicans (17%).  

• Only 56% of New Entrant Republicans say they would “definitely” vote Republican in the 2026 congressional elections, compared with 70% of Core Republicans, underscoring that the GOP now has a broader but more internally fragile coalition whose younger outer ring is less securely attached to the party. 

Click here to read the full analysis and subsequent commentary by Manhattan Institute scholars.