US President Donald Trump’s sweeping midterm election defeat has exposed growing divisions within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, with more than one in five loyalists questioning its leadership and direction as criticism increasingly turns towards the president himself.
The Republican Party’s worst electoral setback in decades has prompted supporters to abandon claims of widespread election fraud and instead blame the administration’s failure to deliver on promises to tackle living costs, avoid foreign conflicts and address corruption in Washington.
An analysis of social media activity by data intelligence firm PeakMetrics, conducted for Reuters, found that more than 20 per cent of self-described MAGA loyalists had expressed doubts about the movement’s leadership and future direction following Tuesday’s election.
About half of those questioning the leadership remained supportive of MAGA but no longer backed Trump as its leader, while the other half continued supporting the president despite criticising him.
The analysis examined 12,850 posts sampled from 4.6 million Trump-related comments on X and Reddit between 9pm on Election Day and 8pm the following evening.
The findings reflect a broader internal struggle over whether MAGA should remain centred on Trump or return to its populist and nationalist roots under a different leadership.
Prominent Trump ally and former White House adviser Steve Bannon called for the movement to rebuild by adopting a more aggressive nationalist and populist agenda.
“We have to rebuild,” Bannon told Reuters, welcoming Trump’s decision to elevate Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s hardline immigration crackdown, to White House chief of staff.
“Miller's appointment as chief of staff underpins my point. There is no more hardcore MAGA proponent than Stephen,” he said.
Trump's appointment of Miller, replacing Susie Wiles, was welcomed by some of the movement's most vocal supporters as a reaffirmation of its anti-immigration agenda.
However, the election outcome has also prompted criticism from within Republican ranks, with some lawmakers questioning the administration's strategy and decision-making.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said corruption existed in “all branches of government,” including “I’m sad to say, within the Trump administration”.
“Voters were expecting us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won,” he told Fox News.
Republican Representative Marlin Stutzman of Indiana also criticised Miller's promotion, describing it as a “bad mistake”.
“You don’t promote those who were in charge,” Stutzman told CNN, adding that Miller was unpopular among voters in the Midwest because of his tone.
The White House defended the appointment, saying Miller had been instrumental in delivering Trump's agenda and would continue to do so in his new role.
The political fallout has also weakened one of MAGA's defining narratives, with allegations of widespread election fraud largely disappearing from right-wing discussions following the Republican losses.
MAGA influencer Rogan O’Handley, known as DC_Draino, acknowledged that election fraud was not the reason for the defeat.
“I have been banging the drum of rigged and stolen elections since 2020, but that is not why we lost the midterms,” he wrote on X.
“We lost because we failed to fix the things voters sent us to do.”
Conservative influencer Isabella DeLuca, who was among those charged over the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol before her case was dismissed following Trump's return to office and subsequent pardon, said Republicans had taken voters for granted.
“Republicans were just lazy. They felt like that they were entitled to people's votes and that people would vote for them no matter what,” she told Reuters.
“It goes to show you that you do have to earn people's votes, and that even in a super red state like Texas, you're not untouchable.”
University of Maryland professor Jennifer Golbeck, who has tracked MAGA-related online activity since 2016, said engagement among Trump's most loyal supporters had declined, including a 27 per cent drop in posts and comments on the Patriots.Win forum.
“The enthusiasm and the passion even among this hardest core group of supporters hasn't really been there,” she said.
“They are saying that ‘MAGA is stale.’ It’s not new and exciting like it once was.”
The movement's internal divisions have also extended to its Christian nationalist supporters, some of whom have criticised Trump's handling of the Iran war, his relationship with Israel and his failure to fulfil campaign promises.
Retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, a prominent figure in the movement, described the Republican defeat as “a massacre”, blaming the administration's failure to deliver on pledges to lower living costs and release government investigative files concerning the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Responding to Vice-President JD Vance's assessment that the Iran war was “the reason we lost”, Flynn wrote: “the sheer number of broken promises is why the blue tsunami happened.”
Christian nationalist pastor Douglas Wilson argued that MAGA could survive beyond Trump's leadership but needed to become less personality-driven, focusing instead on border security, tax cuts and avoiding foreign wars.
However, Texas-based pastor Joel Webbon declared the movement finished, blaming Trump for abandoning his political base.
“MAGA is dead,” he wrote on X. “Forever.”
Despite the backlash, some prominent Trump supporters insist the movement remains the dominant force within the Republican Party.
Trump ally Laura Loomer rejected suggestions that the election losses signalled the end of MAGA, arguing that future Republican presidential hopefuls would still need the movement's support.
“The Republican Party belongs to President Trump,” she told Reuters.
“The MAGA movement is still the majority of the GOP base, and whoever wants to run for president in 2028 on the GOP ticket, they would be unwise to be dismissive of President Trump.” - November 9, 2026
