SNL’s ‘Mom Confession’ Rings True: Polls Show Growing, Subtle Doubts Among Some Trump Voters

Saturday Night Live’s recent sketch about a mother confessing doubts about President Donald Trump resonated widely — and the polling data helps explain why. What reads as a comic moment also reflects a pattern in surveys: an uptick in cautious or issue-specific dissatisfaction among some 2024 Trump voters, even if outright regret remains limited.

What the Sketch Captures

The sketch works for viewers across the political spectrum. Conservatives may smirk at self-satisfied liberal children interrupting a vulnerable family moment; liberals see a familiar archetype: the regretful voter slowly recoiling from a previous choice. The question is whether that character mirrors real voter shifts.

Poll Evidence Of Rising Unease

Several reputable polls in recent weeks suggest growing, often subtle, skepticism among parts of the pro-Trump electorate:

• Pew Research Center: About 20% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the Trump administration had been “worse than expected.” The share reporting support for “all” or “most” of Trump’s policies fell from 67% in February 2025 to 56% in late January.
• Fox News: Sixteen percent of 2024 Trump voters disapproved of his job performance. On a dozen specific issues, disapproval among those voters exceeded 20% on 10 issues and reached at least 25% on half of them — signaling notable policy-level dissents (everything but border security and immigration showed higher disapproval).
• The New York Times–Siena College: Twelve percent of 2024 Trump voters disapproved of his job performance overall, while 17% called his first year back “unsuccessful” (9% “very unsuccessful”). Sixteen percent said the year was worse than expected, and 16% reported negative emotions when asked to describe how they felt about it.

Regret And Reservations: Small But Meaningful Shares

Direct measures of “regret” remain small but noteworthy. An October Washington Post–Ipsos survey found 7% of Trump voters said they regretted supporting him (compared with 3% of Kamala Harris supporters), and 19% of non-White Trump voters expressed regret. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll showed the share of Trump voters who were “very confident” in their 2024 vote slipping from 74% in April to 69% in August; roughly three in 10 reported some reservations (from “some regrets” and “mixed feelings” to “some concerns”).

These results suggest that many voters hesitate to register flat disapproval in a binary question — but their dissatisfaction appears more readily on targeted questions about policy, emotions, or retrospective judgments.

What It Means

Taken together, the data imply a modest but politically meaningful trend: a not-insignificant minority of Trump voters are expressing doubts, often in specific areas rather than as wholesale repudiations. The pattern mirrors the SNL mom’s hesitant admission — voters may be inwardly reconsidering their choices while remaining reluctant to say so publicly or in a simple approval poll.

That reluctance is understandable: admitting you were wrong can be uncomfortable, especially amid partisan gloating. For analysts and campaigns, the takeaway is that deep dives into policy stances and emotions often reveal more about voter sentiment than single-question approval measures.

Sources: Pew Research Center; Fox News polling; The New York Times–Siena College; Washington Post–Ipsos; University of Massachusetts Amherst.