Politics

UK and US voters are highly cynical. They express it differently.

Published

3 months ago

June 14, 2026

It’s not just football versus soccer. Britain and America share a language and deep historical ties, but their political systems are an ocean apart.

That could be good news for President Donald Trump.

As Republicans in the United States search for clues about the political mood ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections, a parliamentary by-election in Makerfield, England, is demanding attention. It’s not just that the special election could kick off a chain of events ending in Keir Starmer being ousted as prime minister — the contest itself serves as an early test of whether the anti-incumbent anger that upended Western democracies in 2024 remains a potent force.

But a new analysis of POLITICO Poll results suggests British and American voters respond to that political frustration in different ways. While cynicism about politics is widespread and persistent in both countries, British voters, with an array of political parties across the ideological spectrum, are willing to abandon their party in search of an alternative.

American voters, by contrast, remain largely constrained by the two-party system — limiting just how far they can go in channeling their frustrations.

In the U.K., just half of those who voted for Starmer’s center-left Labour Party in 2024 plan to vote the same way in the next election, according to the survey conducted by Public First from May 8 to May 11.

Meanwhile, strong majorities of Americans — including 75 percent of Trump 2024 voters and 86 percent of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris — plan to stick with their party, underscoring just how little voter movement there tends to be in the U.S.

“We have a far, far more fluid system, I think, even than in the U.S., so people will switch parties,” said Mark Shanahan, an associate professor of political engagement at University of Surrey in Guildford, England.

That could be a saving grace for Trump and the GOP as they brace for a midterm landscape more difficult than initially expected, a change fueled in large part by voters’ persistent economic anxieties. It’s easier for the British voters who elected Starmer in 2024 to move to a different party in the country’s multiparty system, but disaffected Trump voters have no real choice.

Trump’s rise to the White House in 2016 was powered by a coalition that included independents, disengaged voters and Americans who felt alienated from the political establishment. They helped him again in 2024.

Republicans trying to stave off a difficult midterms have since warned that the biggest danger for the party in November is not that those voters suddenly defect, but that they become disillusioned enough to simply not vote. It’s a turnout election, strategists and candidates from both parties keep saying, that will likely come down to whether Trump voters show up for the party even when he’s not on the ballot.

What they’re less worried about is Democrats finding a way to move large numbers of persuadable, frustrated Republican voters back into the fold, or to pick up steadfast partisans. That’s true even as voters keep making clear that they’re looking for change.

The Blue Light News Poll reveals just how deep the sense of cynicism and pessimism runs among voters in both countries. In the U.S., 71 percent of adults say politicians only look out for themselves, including 79 percent of those who backed Harris in 2024 and 71 percent who voted for Trump.

There are similar frustrations in the U.K., where majorities of voters blame the politicians — not the system — for the country’s current political problems. In a poll conducted earlier this month by London-based Public First, a 45 percent plurality of U.K. adults say that the country keeps changing prime ministers because none of them are any good.

But the analysis from Public First finds an important distinction in how voters in the two countries channel their frustration at the ballot box. British voters appear much more willing to cross party lines.

In the U.K., the Labour Party rode to power in part by tapping into the support from cynical voters. But two years later, the Labour Party is hemorrhaging supporters. Fewer than half — 49 percent — of those who voted with the Labour Party in 2024 plan to do so again, while 13 percent plan to vote for the Green Party to its left and 13 percent for leading hard-right party Reform U.K., while the rest are divided among other parties or unsure according to The Blue Light News Poll.

“What we are seeing, particularly since Brexit over in the U.K., is a dissatisfaction in what was never formally a two-party system, but had been a de facto two-party system pretty much since 1916,” said Shanahan.

The Conservative Party — the Tories, the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher that battled with Labour for a century — has fallen out of favor, losing support to Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party. That break is similar to the MAGA vs. traditional Republican split in the United States — but the two-party American system forces the GOP to stay together in an at-times tense coalition on the right, while British voters can simply switch from Conservative to Reform.

That also spells trouble on the left for Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted and who is eager to quash an internal revolt that could eventually lead to his ouster. The Makerfield by-election on Thursday will determine whether Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and Starmer’s chief internal rival, is elected as Labour’s representative in Parliament, giving him the chance to challenge Starmer for the party leadership and potentially replace him as prime minister.

“As the electoral politics of the U.K. fragments, it can only take a few thousand cynical voters in each of a few hundred constituencies to switch a majority to a devastating defeat,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, Blue Light News’s polling partner. “This is how, in 2024, Labour got into government with fewer votes than it got in 2019, and why most election modelling would now say they’ve lost that majority as quickly as they gained it.”

The Blue Light News Poll in June found 64 percent of U.K. adults say they don’t trust Starmer and, in a separate question, 62 percent say he is not someone who keeps his promises. Labour suffered massive losses in last month’s elections, prompting the calls from Starmer’s own MPs for him to be replaced.

But as Starmer stares down that threat — fueled by some of the very voters who elected him into office in the first place — the challenges before Trump and the GOP are much different.

In the U.S., even the most cynical and disaffected voters still tend to stick with their party identities. Even among non-MAGA Republicans — the conservatives least loyal to the president, who do not self-identify with his MAGA movement and ideology — highly cynical voters are just as likely to stick with the GOP in the midterms as less cynical voters are, according to Public First.

“In the U.K., voters who are dissatisfied with the main party tend to have a third or even fourth option. In the U.S., they have one alternative, or the option to not show up,” Wride said.

Poll after poll shows early signs of Trump’s 2024 coalition fracturing, on issues including the cost of living and the Iran war, but when faced with the prospect of choosing between one main party on the left and one on the right, voters tend to hold their noses and pick the same one they have before.

Politics

Stephen A. Smith on Trump, Democrats and the politics of chaos

Published

2 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Stephen A. Smith on Trump, Democrats and the politics of chaos

lead image

Politics

Elon Musk unleashes first wave of spending on key races in the midterms

Published

4 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Elon Musk’s super PAC disclosed its first independent expenditures of the 2026 general election in a filing released late Wednesday, detailing roughly $800,000 across key House and Senate races.

Musk’s America PAC targeted several key Senate contests, including races in Texas, Maine, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan and Alaska.

The largest amount went to Texas — over $247,000 — where Republicans are expected to deploy a wave of party resources to bolster Attorney General Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico.

Musk’s super PAC also put nearly $90,000 into eight House races:

Rep. Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin; Rep. Mike Lawler in New York; Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia; Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey; Rep. Scott Perry in Pennsylvania; Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania; Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania; and Scott Singer in Florida.

The independent expenditures — Musk’s first of the general election — were disclosed days after he met with Speaker Mike Johnson in Texas last week.

Republicans already hold a significant fundraising advantage over Democrats, buoyed by President Donald Trump’s roughly $400 million in his MAGA Inc. super PAC. Trump is under growing pressure from Republicans to tap into that money as the midterms near. A major investment from Musk would further widen the GOP’s financial edge heading into November.

Musk has reportedly considered spending at least $100 million for the GOP through America PAC to help Republicans in this year’s midterms, but the full scope of that effort remains unclear.

A spokesperson for America PAC declined to comment.

Musk spent roughly $290 million to support Trump and the GOP during the 2024 cycle, predominantly through his super PAC, making him the largest individual donor to any political committee that cycle, before he took on a major role in the White House’s DOGE effort.

Politics

These mayors live along Lake America’s shores. But they won’t be calling it that.

Published

8 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Robert Corradino has never lived anywhere but Oswego, New York. As the only commercial port city on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, everything bears the lake’s name — the streets, the convention center, the historic fort.

And in his first term as mayor, Corradino — a Republican who said he previously voted for President Donald Trump — said he worries that a distant political feud is threatening to erase part of his city’s history.

In the days following Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, Corradino and other mayors in upstate New York said Trump’s decision is “regrettable” and could upset voters in the region — and even further impact an economy so closely tied to the U.S.’s relationship with Canada.

“The water is part of our identity,” Corradino said. “Not only our identity, but the economy and the history of the lake is tied to the city.”

Oswego, a city of 17,000, is split between Democrats and Republicans, Corradino said. However, the larger Oswego County is one of the reddest in the state and 61 percent of its voters went for Trump in the 2024 election.

Yet on Monday, several Oswego County legislators from both parties approved a resolution rejecting the new name, out of concern for the cost of the rebrand on taxpayers and businesses. The resolution said it does not intend to diminish the authority of the federal government, rather it aims to “recognize the longstanding historical and regional significance of the name Lake Ontario.”

Last Thursday night, at Oswego’s weekly summer concert series, Corradino said everyone he interacted with said they didn’t support the name change and they weren’t sure why it was happening. The general sentiment, he said, was frustration.

Asked about the issues Oswego residents actually care about, Corradino said his constituents are concerned about less immigration enforcement and the war with Iran.

“In general the consensus I see is it just seems like the country is heading in a direction that we’re not all happy about,” Corradino said.

The pushback is not isolated to Oswego. Hours after Trump signed the executive order, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who runs the only state that borders Lake Ontario, said in a post to social media, “New York won’t be calling it that.”

And there’s been mixed adaptation nationally — similar to when Trump dictated that the Gulf of Mexico now go by Gulf of America.

Signs mark the entrance to the Lake Ontario State Parkway on Aug. 25, 2026, in Rochester, N.Y.

On Saturday, Google Maps, which uses the U.S. Geographic Names Information System that comes from official government sources, officially changed the name. Map users on the American side will see “Lake America” while users in Canada will see “Lake Ontario.” For users outside of both the U.S. and Canada, they will see both names. Apple Maps followed suit, using the same naming approach as Google.

But MapQuest — the once-dominant mapping service of the 1990s and early 2000s — rocketed up app stores after refusing to use Lake America.

Long before the lake was renamed, Alex Morgia — a Democrat and mayor of Sackets Harbor, N.Y. — said his community has been grappling with the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Canada.

Sackets Harbor, located along the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, is home to a number of Canadian residents. A village of 1,400 people, it was a major military outpost and naval command center during the War of 1812, when the U.S. clashed with British and Canadian forces.

Since 1971, the village has hosted the Can-Am festival to commemorate the village’s Canadian-American heritage.

The festival “reminds everyone that it’s not very nice to be at odds with your neighbor,” Morgia said. “Having good relationships with your international neighbors is important, particularly for people that live along the border on either side.”

Last year’s festival was the first time residents began making floats of maple leaves and Canadian flags to protest the Trump administration’s calls to make Canada the “51st state” and to remind Sackets Harbor residents that there were Canadian citizens among them, Morgia said.

This year, as Trump has continued to roll out tariffs against Canadian products, and relations with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney continued to worsen, Morgia joked that the theme for this year’s parade should’ve been “we’re sorry.”

The overall atmosphere at this year’s parade in July was “somber,” Morgia said.

“I kind of hoped that the Canadian issue had gone by the wayside, but you know [Trump] seems to bring it up when he needs to,” Morgia said.

Sackets Harbor is split between Democrats and Republicans, Morgia said. Jefferson County, which encompasses Sackets Harbor, overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2024 election with 61 percent of its vote.

“It’s a three-hour drive to Montreal, a two-hour drive to Toronto and a six-hour drive to New York City,” Morgia said. “The biggest metropolitan cities near us are Canadian, and a lot of North Country businesses and people rely on the southern part of Canada. … I’m hopeful that voters will think about that at the polls in November and in 2028.”

In the village of Sodus Point, N.Y. — which is located along the southern border of the Great Lake — Republican Mayor Pat Nolan said he’s disappointed by the name-change as “Ontario” is rooted in the Indigenous history of the region.

The name Ontario, is largely believed to come from Iroquoian roots, meaning “beautiful lake” or “sparkling water,” according to the Canadian government. The Canadian province of Ontario, is named after the lake.

A village of 1,000 people, Sodus Point is located in Wayne County, where Trump received 61 percent of the vote in 2024. Nolan was elected in a write-in campaign last year.

“My hope is that, rather than allowing this decision to become another wedge that further divides people,” Nolan wrote in an email, “it can encourage a broader discussion about the history of this great body of water, the Indigenous people who first gave it its name and the generations of communities that have grown along its shores.”