Members of the U.S. Military historically have been a reliable Republican voting bloc. But not this year.
A new poll finds the President of the United States, Donald Trump, is not only underwater in favorability with military service members, but many more are voting for former Vice President Joe Biden than for their Commander-in-Chief.
Half of those surveyed (49.9%) in a Military Times poll view Trump unfavorably, including a whopping 42% who view him very unfavorably. Less than four in 10 (37.8%) view him favorably.
The decline in Trump’s favorability is striking. In 2016 his favorable ratings came in at 46.1%, meaning he’s dropped over eight points in just four years.
But Trump’s problem with the military isn’t just his favorability rating. There are 1.3 million active-duty members of the military.
Just a little more than one-third (37.4%) of those polled say they are voting for him.
43.1%, close to half, are voting for Biden.
How bad is this as a bellwether for the president?
40% of the military identifies as Republican or Libertarian, just 16% as Democratic.
Another indication that the military does not support Trump? In 2016, pre-election polling and exit polling found military service members voted for Trump 2-1 over Hillary Clinton.
Biden is now getting more than twice the share of military votes that Clinton did.
Image: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead via Flickr