The Rise and Fall of Political Alienation in Predicting Trump Support

ABSTRACT

This research note replicates and extends Allamong's analysis of political alienation and Trump support using the 2024 ANES. We distinguish inefficacy, the belief that one has little influence over politics, from cynicism, distrust of government officials and institutions. Allamong found that cynicism predicted turnout and Trump support in 2016 but not in 2020. We show that this association did not reemerge in 2024, even though Trump was running as an “outsider” non‐incumbent again. In multinomial models, cynicism is negatively associated with voting for either major‐party candidate relative to abstention, including Trump. Descriptive evidence from open‐ended responses further suggests that references to Trump as a political outsider declined from 2016 to 2024. The results indicate that outsider appeals may have limited durability once an outsider candidate becomes a central figure in the political system, even if they temporarily exit from the system for a time.