Is Donald Trump's base still solid? Nope.

Salena Zito is the best on-the-ground political reporter in the U.S. She has been the best for longer than she'd like to admit. Like the old EF Hutton commercials, when Salena talks, I listen. When Salena wrote this article, it confirmed what she wrote earlier -- that Trump's support is softening.

Salena's news article opens by saying "Alex Anastasio voted for Donald Trump for president twice, attended Trump rallies, organized events for him, and placed signs in front of her home. And she was deeply hopeful in the early days following the 2020 election that once all of the votes were counted, he would serve a second term — so hopeful, indeed, that she was initially involved in a voter recount effort in support of that." In other words, she wasn't a passive Trump supporter.

The article continues, saying "Three years later, she said she has no doubt his indictment is politically motivated, but that does not mean she is supporting him in 2024. "We need someone with Trump’s policies without all of the drama," she said, adding that drama cost Pennsylvania a lot in the midterms. "He should have stayed out of the U.S. Senate race and the governor's race; both of those candidates cost state house and senate seats and congressional races."

Anastasio said: "People may not understand this, but I lived and breathed Trump, so this isn’t something that comes lightly. I took a lot of heat for supporting him in 2016 when no one thought he would win, and I am prepared for heat for not supporting him now, but it is time to look forward, not relive the past."

Then there's this:

One week after Trump’s indictment stemming from his alleged mishandling of classified documents, a new poll conducted by CNN shows that while 71% of voters say politics played a role in that charging decision, that doesn’t mean 71% of them back him, let alone 71% of Republican primary voters.

In truth, Republican voters are all over the place. Overall, 47% of them say Trump is their first choice for the party’s nomination for president, which is 4% lower than in last month’s CNN poll.

Trump's favorability among Republican voters also has dropped from 77% in May to 67% now, at the same time, the share of Republican-leaning voters who said they would not support him under any circumstances has jumped from 16% in May to 23% now.

To the DC-based pundits that leave the Beltway once-a-year whether they need it or not, they haven't noticed this deterioration because they've spent their time bouncing the same words off each other since January, 2021. This interview is a perfect example of that problem:

Charlie Hurt: But it is true and it's a real problem and in politics, you can't conceal it."

What a crock. If it's such a problem for Gov. DeSantis, how did he win in the biggest landslide in Florida gubernatorial history? Pundits criticized his rollout for his presidential campaign via Twitter Spaces. There's no disputing that there were lots of glitches. Despite every news network pummelling DeSantis' rollout, small dollar donors essentially ignored all that and poured $8,200,000 into his presidential account in the first 24 hours. By comparison, Tim Scott garnered $2,000,000 in his first 24 hours. What a horrific start the DeSantis campaign got off to. (SARC) This is eye-popping:

In talking with Republican grassroots activists such as Anastasio and regular Republican-leaning voters across Pennsylvania after they watched Trump’s interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier earlier this week, two sentiments emerged as what is eroding his support among former die-hard supporters. These Republicans are tired of his fixation with talking about only himself and not about the voters, a trait that they did not perceive him to possess in 2016, and his refusal to accept that he lost in 2020.

In the Monday interview, Baier asked Trump how he would win back independent female suburban voters who were turned off by Trump’s election lies and his criminal cases. "First of all, I won in 2020 by a lot, OK? Let’s get that straight. I won in 2020," Trump answered, then peeled off a list of arguments to insist that he won.

Baier was having none of it: "You lost the 2020 election," he said, adding there were several recounts in all of the swing states, and none of them produced evidence of significant widespread fraud, nor did any of the subsequent lawsuits.

Thus far, Trump won in 2016. That's the extent of Trump's winning. He lost in 2018, when Democrats picked up 40 seats in the House. He lost his re-election bid in 2020 because he ran 3-5 points worse than the down-ticket GOP. He also lost the Senate because he told supporters not to show up for the Georgia runoffs. In 2022, in statewide races, Trump's endorsed candidates lost except in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio. His candidates lost in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona twice, Georgia and New Hampshire.

Finally, there's this:

After spending several days interviewing those voters, one can see there is a nuance that many reporters and strategists are missing. Namely, you can still have loved Trump for what he did as president, still think his policies were good for the country, still appreciate his willingness to go to the mattresses for the country, still think he is a victim of a political witch hunt — and yet and still not want to vote for him in 2024.

Anastasio said reporters and strategists shouldn’t just assume they understand how a voter's mind works, especially Republicans. "Voters can walk and chew gum at the same time," she said. "I can’t believe I have to say that to get my point across."

These are people that understand the concept of the prison of 2 ideas. The other part to this is that people are just tired of Trump. When he criticized Kayleigh McEnany, that ripped it with lots of voters. She was the most loyal foot soldier he had. Despite that, he said of Kayleigh "Let the RINOs and globalists have her. Fox News should only use real stars."

In case the Beltway pundits haven't noticed, Trump is just a bitter old man. The Trump of 2016 died in 2020.