If anyone can write a great breakup album, it’s Ben Gibbard. For almost 30 years, the Death Cab for Cutie frontman has channelled misery into such emotionally ruinous songs as 2003’s “Tiny Vessels”, with its cool and cruel detached lover, to “The Sound of Settling”, a lesson in unending, unrequited pining.
Today, though, Gibbard is reluctant to call the band’s new project a “divorce record”, despite the fact that, yes, it was written in the aftermath of his marriage ending. “Oftentimes those records are someone saying, ‘I’m going to bring this into the court of public opinion and tell my one-sided story about how this went down,’” he says. “You know the phrase, only a fool goes to court thinking the jury are bound to see it their way?”
Gibbard is the first to admit he’s played the fool before. “I’ve certainly taken that tactic before, when I was younger,” he says, citing 2015’s Kintsugi, written in the wake of his split from actor and musician Zooey Deschanel – to whom he was married for three years – as the most obvious example. “I’ve long since realised that painting yourself as the aggrieved narrator… well, there is a time and place for that, but at a certain moment in life, you’ve got to grow out of it.” Anyway, he adds wryly, “Does anyone really think the biggest pop star in the world is always the innocent bystander in their own life? I don’t think so.”
Nearing 50, Gibbard has grown out of it and then some. Released last week, the band’s 11th album, I Built You a Tower, opens with mellow, melancholic guitar and the line: “Please forgive me.” It’s as much a plea to himself as it is to the person he’s speaking to. Later, on the jittery “Punching the Flowers”, Gibbard sings of words “sharpened like axes” that a man swings around “blindly”. Lyrically, Gibbard appears ready to look inward, to hold his hands up and own his mistakes. It’s not you, it’s me, he seems to be saying. Or at the very least, it’s both of us.
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Death Cab for Cutie have released their 11th album, ‘I Built You a Tower’ (Provided by label)
The songs are no less potent for their maturity; age has given them a hard-won patina. Even after they aged out of it, Death Cab have always tuned into that high frequency of youth, when everything is either the end or the beginning of the world. The confessional lyricism and assured sound of their Grammy-nominated fifth studio album Plans, released in 2005, proved to be their breakthrough from the Pacific Northwest music scene. It was also the first record they released on a major label (Atlantic), and the first time they’d recorded outside of their hometown.
“I felt less comfortable in my own skin in the world,” Gibbard says of their cultural “peak”, a time when their music was inescapable thanks to relentless syncing by hit shows such as The OC, Grey’s Anatomy, and One Tree Hill. “Trying to go about my life the way I’d gone about it before, I felt that more people were staring at me in places I was not used to being stared at. It’s kind of a headf*** when you feel like your presence is a topic of conversation whereas before nobody gave a s***.” Increasingly, celebrity felt like anathema to Gibbard, both living his life, and later, making music.
Those feelings were amplified when he began dating Deschanel. Pre-New Girl but post-500 Days of Summer, she was considerably more famous than Gibbard, who had to adapt.
Gibbard with Zooey Deschanel in 2009 (Getty)
“Without going into detail, there were some scary people around, and that changed how I had to live my life,” he says. “I felt like I was living my life in public like a Secret Service agent.” When they went out on dates, Gibbard would locate the exits by second nature; he and Deschanel had code words for emergencies.
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That feeling of being surveilled 24/7 invariably had an impact on Gibbard’s songwriting: “When you’re with someone who’s recognisable, you start taking on some of that reticence as well. I found myself deferring to her level of reticence because, well, it was different for her than it was for me. I think I retreated as a writer as a result of that.”
We’re speaking over a video call, but Gibbard’s screen is dark. “I’m a pacer when I talk,” he explains, and I get the sense that he is more open because of it. The absence of video, though, does mean I have to rely on recent photographs to know that he is no longer sporting that age-old emo signifier: the side fringe. Instead, the hairs sweep up, optimistic and hopeful.
Without going into detail, there were some scary people around, and that changed how I had to live my life
As we get older, we find new ways of coping. I Built You a Tower refers to Gibbard’s penchant for compartmentalisation, a process in which he assigns the memories and people in his life – whether wonderful or painful – a place in his psychological skyline. Death Cab, for example, looms large on the horizon, like a skyscraper. The tower was erected after his last marriage: “But sometimes the memories, the people, find their way out of the structures. You hear a song, or smell something, and all of a sudden you’re back in that time of your life,” he says. The album’s title track explores exactly this: “’Cause I needed you/ I needed you contained.”
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But nothing stays contained for ever. His second divorce, from tour manager and photographer Rachel Demy, spilled over into a 2023 anniversary tour for both Death Cab and Gibbard’s other longtime band, Postal Service. In some ways, performing became a salve, he says. “To be back in my 26-year-old self, so to speak, for two hours a night, and play these songs from a very different time in my life…” Other times, the clashing of his two lives felt disorientating: “One moment you’re emailing with a lawyer, dealing with the ugly elements of divorce – I wouldn’t recommend it, of course – and then, all of a sudden, it’s time to go on stage.’”
It helped that everyone – from his bandmates to the crew – knew what was going on. “Everyone understood the pressure that was on me,” he says. “The timing of it was not ideal, but at the same time, there really couldn’t have been a better group of people to be around.”
In truth, playing anniversary shows is weird even without the divorce element, says Gibbard. Coming face-to-face with your 20-year-old self isn’t always flattering. But it can also be funny. “I’ll be listening to songs on the first record about some girl I dated for two months, and it’ll be like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe this happened!’ and then you get older and it’s like, yeah, s*** happens. Life is a series of s*** happening. That’s how life works.”
Gibbard: ‘The girl I wrote “Tiny Vessels” about… We laugh about it now’ (Getty)
Gibbard sees the gulf between himself now and himself back then as a sign of emotional growth, reassurance that he isn’t the same mercenary lover who whined “you are beautiful but you don’t mean a thing to me” on “Tiny Vessels” more than 20 years ago. “The girl I wrote that song about… We laugh about it now,” he says. “ I just think, ‘Oh my God. I was really being such a little b**** about this.’”
On I Built You a Tower, he’s as candid as he was when the band first started. It’s their first release since going independent again – the original plan was one more album with Atlantic, until a personnel change prompted them to leave. “It was like an episode of Succession,” says Gibbard, recalling how former CEO Julie Greenwald left in 2024. “This nepo baby [Elliot Grainge, son of Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grange] was given the label,” he says critically. “We took one look at this guy’s picture and we were like, ‘This guy didn’t have a Transatlanticism phase in college. This guy didn’t rock with Plans. I think we can safely say that this isn’t our guy.” And so they left.
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At Anti, Death Cab are in good company with fellow artists MJ Lenderman, Waxahatchee, Fleet Foxes, Slow Pulp, The Beths. “I mean, f***ing Tom Waits,” continues Gibbard. “It felt like the perfect place for us. We’re not being put out to pasture on a retirement label.”
He has no interest in giving in to the pull of Noughties nostalgia; beyond the lyrical evolutions, I Built You a Tower is expansive and diverse in sound, too. That said, he knows what it means to fans to hear their old stuff live, because he is a fan first and foremost himself. “What’s the point of playing a show if you’re not going to honour the connection that people have with that music?” he asks. It’s further evidence of how Gibbard has matured. He cares how the other side feels.
So far 10 people have been jailed following the demonstration involving 1,000 people
12:32, 12 Jun 2026Updated 12:33, 12 Jun 2026
A man who hurled a frying pan at police during violent clashes in Southampton has admitted taking part in the disorder that erupted after the murder of student Henry Nowak.
Ryan Atkinson, 36, from Highcliff Avenue, became the 22nd person charged over the chaos as he pleaded guilty at Southampton Magistrates’ Court.
District Judge Henry Gordon said Atkinson had “picked up a large frying pan and launched it at police” as tempers flared. He remanded the defendant in custody to be sentenced at Southampton Crown Court on June 29 and told him: “I find there are substantial grounds that if I granted you bail you would commit further offences.”
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So far 10 people have been jailed following the demonstration involving 1,000 people which started outside Southampton Central Police Station on June 2 before hundreds moved on to the Portswood area where Mr Nowak was killed and where the violence started.
Anger had erupted after police body-worn video was released showing Mr Nowak being placed in handcuffs moments before he became unconscious and subsequently died. Vickrum Digwa, 23, who lived in a nearby road with his family, was jailed for life to serve a minimum of 21 years for his murder.
The court hearings have been told that 13 police officers and a police dog were injured in the protest and a member of the public suffered a broken jaw.
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The police operation involved 100 officers from nine different areas with a cost of £443,000 and a clean-up cost to the local council of £7,000, the court heard.
Four more men are set to be sentenced at Southampton Crown on Friday for their parts in the disorder.
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Zendaya will also feature in both movies alongside her The Drama co-star.
If you want to read ahead of this year’s releases or are keen to find out more about the origins of the movies and shows already out this year, we’ve got your back (or should that be your spine?).
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Here are eight books to read from 2026′s most exciting book-to-screen options:
1) Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
Ryan Gosling at the Project Hail Mary premiere
The 2021 sci-fi novel focuses on teacher Ryland Grace, who wakes up on a spaceship one day with no memory of how he got there. Then, he learns he’s accidentally become humanity’s last hope (space enthusiasts will be pleased to learn that some of its scientific details are NASA-backed).
The 1988 novel is the second of Dame Jilly Cooper’s 11 Rutshire Chronicles books (the last, Tackle!, was published much later than the others, in 2023).
Not only is the Rivals book filled with all the sex, scandal, and ’80s glamour you’d expect, rumour has it that the production company that made the Disney+ version has the rights to nine of the original 10 books – meaning readers who keep leafing through the series could be richly rewarded later on.
TV show release date: the first season is available to stream on Disney+, as are the first six episodes of season two. However, the series has taken a break and is expected to return to the streamer in November 2026.
4) Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
It’s no secret I’m a bit of an Austen fan, but even those who don’t usually go in for Regency novels ought to give the classic book a go. The funny, quietly subversive story focuses on the almost-certainly-financially-screwed Bennet sisters, the ridiculous and cynical Georgian marriage market, and some very eligible real estate.
The way this Ancient Greek poem is talked about, you’d swear it wasn’t basically a sex and violence-packed soap opera. But in many ways, soldier Odysseus’ long journey home is exactly that – he meets with fantastical creatures, evil witches, and sneaky sirens during what must surely go down in history as the world’s most eventful commute.
A sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, this story is set 15 years after the cliffhanger ending of the first book. Aunt Lydia shows her mettle as she fights against the oppressive regime set in the original novel.
TV show release: The first season is already out on Disney+.
7) Dune and Dune Messiah, by Frank Herbert
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me reading the first Dune trilogy, despite my aversion to sci-fi
To be honest, the first novel will see you through most of the first two movies, and is more than enough to call yourself a sandworm bookworm. But Dune: Part Three leans heavily on Dune: Messiah, the second in Herbert’s canonical six-part series.
Movie release date: December 18, 2026 (just about enough time to finish the first trilogy)
8) Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
It might not be as essential an Austen read as Pride and Prejudice. But Elinor and Marianne Dashwood’s plight is no less engaging than the Bennet sisters’: after some significant downsizing, the family has to make their way in a very new society. Yearning and love troubles inevitably ensue.
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This year’s movie marks the first screen adaptation of the book since the BBC’s excellent 2008 TV series. Only time will tell if stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Hanna star Esmé Creed-Miles will prove just as dazzling on the big screen.
“There’s something radical about seeing people reclaim play, performance and visibility later in life,” says those behind an over-50s circus showcase
Roll up, roll up: this weekend sees the return of Generation Circus’ Over 50s Circus Showcase, a joyful challenge to the idea that play, performance and risk-taking belong only to the young.
Held on Sunday, 14 June in Hertfordshire, UK, the show — ‘A Rebellion Against Ageism’ — will bring together circus artists ranging in age from 50 all the way up to 96. Trapeze, hula hoop, juggling, clowning and dance are all on the bill.
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Each performer is a weekly attendee at Generation Circus’ circus skills workshops held at Ware Drill Hall, learning new skills from juggling to trapeze. Classes are completely free and funded by the The National Lottery Community Fund.
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Pink-haired Carol (main picture), who performs trapeze, dance, and hoop, said that her world “came crashing down” after the death of her daughter four years ago. “Circus gave me a way to reconnect with the world, it’s given me a purpose and brought a little bit of sparkle back into my life. Performing is my escape from the reality of life’s hard knocks, my happy place.”
Several performers are returning from last year’s show, ‘Will You Still Love Me?’, which drew sell-out audiences of 500.
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Carol now also performs burlesque as her alter ego Talula Demure. She added: “I say be a kid at heart because the older you get the more you can get away with.”
Emma Taylor launched Generation Circus in collaboration with her daughter, Maisy. The pair have an extensive background in contemporary and social circus. Back in the 1990s, Emma and husband Dave had a doubles trapeze act – with Maisy always taking part in the show, even at just age four.
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“Maisy, Dave and I have been a circus family for three decades — and building Generation Circus together has been the most rewarding adventure of all,” said Emma.
Dave now also works tirelessly behind the scenes on Generation Circus, sorting out everything “from welding rigging plates to mending fairy lights to fixing the wheels on our stage chair”.
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Another of last year’s performers, Alison, said: “Emma has created a wonderfully nurturing, safe space where we can come as we are and feel accepted. There’s no too big, too much, too weird here!”
The portraits featured here, taken by Andy Holloway, carry the same spirit: older adults seen not as frail or fading, but theatrical, funny, visible and fully in the frame. As Generation Circus founder Emma Taylor puts it: “there’s something radical about seeing people reclaim play, performance and visibility later in life.”
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Bob (above), a clown and dancer, said: “I’m not a performer, I’m not comfortable being on stage … or so I have thought all my life. Circus has made me think about who I am. And it turns out I AM a performer!”
“The encouragement of the group has brought out something I never imagined was in me,” added Bob.
Photography by Andy Holloway
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The trial of a man from Bridgend who killed his wife is entering its fifth day on Friday. Michael Davies, 57, is on trial at Newport Crown Court accused of murdering his wife Tracey Davies, 48, at their home at Bryn Terrace, Cefn Cribwr, near Bridgend, on April 18 last year.
He denies murder but accepts that he killed her, and has told police he did so by strangling her between 7.30am and 8am that morning.
On the fourth day of the trial, the court heard details of his police interview in which Davies outlined how he killed his wife.
Davies told officers he didn’t have control of what he was doing, saying: “I loved her to bits but I didn’t seem to have any understanding over my hands. I’m not sure what I was even doing. I just wanted to keep strangling her.”
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Tracey was found dead on a bed in one of the bedrooms. The defendant had cuts to his throat and leg and was found slumped behind the bedroom door.
Tracey Davies’ sister remembered her as being ‘the life and soul of the party’(Image: Family photo)
In the police interview, the defendant told officers that after Ms Davies came into the bedroom he put his hands on her neck and started squeezing. He said he kept the pressure on her neck but he didn’t understand what was going on, and he said he kept trying to squeeze her neck and wanted to keep strangling her.
He told officers he then had “an overwhelming feeling” to get a knife from the kitchen and said he had a feeling to put the knife into himself. He then said he couldn’t remember anything else until he woke up in the UHW.
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When asked whether he had intended to kill his wife, he replied, “not at all”. Davies said his mind was so broken he didn’t know what his intention was.
So far, the jury has heard the distressing account he gave police of how he took her life, as well as evidence from the accused’s daughter and healthcare professionals.
Davies, of Cefn Road in Bridgend, denies murdering his wife, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
The trial continues.
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Mr Hockney, who was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1937, passed away peacefully at his home on June 11, just weeks before what would have been his 89th birthday.
The artist’s publicist described him as “one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries”.
A statement said: “The celebrated British artist David Hockney, one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries, passed away peacefully at home on 11 June 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday.”
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RIP David Hockney 🎨🕊️
The legendary British artist David Hockney has died aged 88, a representative has confirmed.
Hockney, who was due to turn 89 next month, died peacefully at his home in London on June 11th, 2026.
Mr Hockney began his training at the Bradford School of Art before moving on to the Royal College of Art in London, where he emerged as a prominent figure in the British pop art movement.
He was best known for his vibrant, sunlit paintings, particularly his iconic Los Angeles swimming pool scenes.
His wide-ranging body of work included photography, printmaking, stage design, and later, digital art.
His career spanned more than 70 years and was defined by an unrelenting sense of optimism and experimentation.
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Much of his work drew on influences from the Renaissance and the abstract expressionist movement, but he remained resolutely individual in his approach, often rejecting artistic trends in favour of his own vision.
Mr Hockney’s formative years in Bradford left a long-lasting impression on his art.
He grew up in a working-class family and began drawing at an early age, despite little encouragement at Bradford Grammar School.
Sorry to hear of the death of the artist David Hockney. His self-portrait, aged 17 in 1954, hangs in the David Hockney Gallery at Cartwright Hall, Bradford, one of Yorkshire’s less-well known galleries, but a gem. pic.twitter.com/cDvkgiS2ff
With the backing of his parents, he enrolled at art college and later the Royal College of Art, where he was known as a rebellious student.
He was warned that he could not graduate – in part because he had not done enough life drawings – to which he responded by painting Life Painting for a Diploma – a bold, unconventional piece that ultimately earned him the college’s gold medal in painting.
A breakthrough came in 1961, when Mr Hockney was featured in the Young Contemporaries exhibition alongside other rising stars of British pop art.
Although associated with the pop art movement, his work also contained strong expressionist influences.
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His artistic direction changed dramatically after moving to Los Angeles in 1964.
He was captivated by the Californian light and lifestyle, which became central themes in his work.
Using bold colours and acrylic paints, he created his iconic swimming pool series, including the renowned A Bigger Splash.
Thousands of music fans are heading to Cardiff this summer to enjoy live music.
With Take That and Metallica taking the stage at the Principality Stadium, as well as the return of Blackweir Live featuring Lewis Capaldi and Pitbull, and a packed summer of events at Cardiff Castle, Transport for Wales has advised that train services are expected to be significantly busier than usual throughout June and July.
TfW has strengthened capacity on key routes and scheduled later services to accommodate attendees.
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Post-event queuing systems will be in place at both Cardiff Central and Cardiff Queen Street stations.
The following station arrangements will be in place:
Principality Stadium concerts (Take That & Metallica): Passengers heading to the Valleys or to the Vale of Glamorgan will be directed to Cardiff Queen Street, while a mainline queueing system will be at Cardiff Central. Queueing will start from 9.45pm at both stations.
Blackweir Live and Cardiff Castle concerts: While services will still be busy, Valleys and the Vale of Glamorgan passengers can use either station for their journey home.
For all Blackweir Live concerts, Cathays station and the station bridge will close at 10pm. Passengers will be directed to either Cardiff Central or Cardiff Queen Street stations.
Pierre Gasly has been returned to third place in the Monaco Grand Prix after his Alpine team successfully appealed against a penalty for pit-lane speeding.
The Frenchman was demoted to seventh place after the race by a five-second penalty for exceeding the pit lane speed limit by 0.1km/h.
He was one of five drivers to be penalised for this during the race, an unusually high number.
A ‘right of review’ hearing requested by Alpine established that cars could legally drive a shorter distance in the pit lane than officials had used in their calculations.
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The stewards accepted Alpine’s argument, backed up by data, that Gasly had never exceeded the 60km/h limit.
The decision is a blow to Mercedes driver George Russell, who was given a drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding which dropped him from third place at the time to 13th at the finish.
Russell’s Mercedes team, as well as the teams of the other drivers who were penalised, did not object to the decisions, even though they believed their drivers had not exceeded the limit.
Gasly committed two ‘offences’. The other drivers in addition to Russell were McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Gasly’s team-mate Franco Colapinto.
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Hamilton’s penalty did not affect his second place as Ferrari managed to serve it in a way that did not penalise him in terms of track position during a safety-car period.
Piastri, who has been dropped to fifth by Gasly’s reinstatement, lost three places in serving his penalty.
The verdict published by the stewards into the right of review hearing said that they had questioned the number of penalties for speeding when the third one occurred.
The statement said: “Race control promptly came back to the stewards stating it had made enquiries of the official timekeepers and was told that there was no issue and that the data was therefore accurate.”
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The pit-lane speed limit is measured by using a series of timing loops and the time taken to travel a specific distance along the pit lane.
The report said that changes to the pit lane this year had meant that the shortest possible route between the loops was 77 centimetres less than the distance used to calculate the limit.
Five of the six offences were by cars calculated to be doing 0.1km/h over the limit. The other was 0.4km/h over.
As a result the stewards decided Gasly had not exceeded the pit-lane speed limit.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Independents have grown increasingly unhappy with President Donald Trump during his second term, a new AP-NORC polling analysis finds, particularly those without a college degree.
The analysis from researchers at The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that while about half of independents without a college education had a positive view of Trump around the 2024 election, his approval with that group fell to about one-quarter this spring. That shift has erased the large education gap that existed among independents in the months before Trump took office for his second term, with independents now holding similarly negative views of the president regardless of their level of education.
The analysis was conducted by aggregating nearly two dozen AP-NORC polls conducted between July 2024 and April 2026, allowing for a deeper look at how support for Trump changed during several distinct periods, including the last six months of 2024, the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, the summer of 2025 when the Big Beautiful Bill passed, last fall’s government shutdown and the beginning of the Iran war.
The compiled polling shows a steady decline among independents throughout Trump’s second term. His standing has also dropped among several small but important groups that moved toward him in the 2024 presidential election, including Black and Hispanic independents.
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More Americans than ever consider themselves independents, and they are among the groups that shifted toward Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Any erosion in that support could signal trouble for Trump and Republicans headed into the midterm elections, which are often seen as reflection of how voters feel about their governing party.
Tafari Torres, a senior research associate at NORC who co-authored the analysis, noted that while Democrats’ and Republicans’ views of Trump have held largely steady in his second term, independents’ opinions are still moving. “Independents are, broadly, the people who are reacting to the events and dropping in their support,” he said.
Dramatic declines during Trump’s first 100 days
Trump’s return to the White House was fueled, in part, by independent voters who saw him as the stronger candidate on key issues like the economy. The new analysis, which looks at Trump’s favorability and presidential approval ratings, shows that once he took the helm, their views soured quickly.
Independents without a college degree had a much more positive view of Trump than college-educated independents did during and just after the 2024 election, but that shifted in the first few months of his term. Positive views of Trump among independents without a college degree fell from 48% in the months before he returned to office to 31% in polling conducted during Trump’s first 100 days back in office. Those warm views declined even further, to about one-quarter, during the government shutdown and the early months of 2026.
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Only about 3 in 10 college-educated independents, by contrast, had a positive view of Trump before he returned to office, making their drop to about one-quarter much less dramatic.
“The decline among no-college independents was steeper and it was greater than the slight decline in college independents,” said Sean Collins, a research associate at NORC who co-authored the analysis. “That was surprising, especially given, when you think of Trump’s coalitions, those without college degrees is usually one of the ones that that stands out.”
Hispanic, younger independents grow disenchanted
Americans without a college degree have long been a key part of Trump’s coalition. But Trump also won in 2024 by making gains among groups that tend to support Democrats, including Hispanic adults.
About 4 in 10 independent voters — 42% — voted for Trump in 2024, up from 37% in the 2020 presidential election. Independent voters without a college degree were a little more likely to back Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris in the last election, according to AP VoteCast, and Hispanic independents were about evenly split between the two.
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The picture looks much bleaker for the president now.
Nearly half of Hispanic independents — 46% — saw Trump favorably in the polling conducted around the presidential election. His approval among these adults dropped quickly in his second term, falling as low as 15% during last fall’s government shutdown before landing around one-quarter in the spring.
“The gains Trump appeared to make during the election, I don’t know if they’re sticking around. He’s experienced some significant shifts among those people,” Torres said. ”From our research, they don’t appear to be permanent gains.”
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The economy is frustrating many independents
Polling suggests that the economy as at the root of many Americans’ frustrations with Trump, including independents.
About half of independents who supported Trump in 2024 said inflation was the single most important factor for their vote, AP VoteCast found, and most expressed high levels of concern about the cost of food and gas.
More than a year into Trump’s second term, inflation remains high, fueled by gas prices that remain elevated as the Iran war continues. An AP-NORC poll conducted in April found that about 3 in 10 independents were “extremely” or “very” concerned about being able to afford groceries in the last few months, and a similar share were worried about being able to afford gas.
The analysis found that Americans’ views of the U.S. economy tend to align with their view of the president. Those with negative views of the country’s economy tended to have negative views of Trump, and about 8 in 10 independents described the U.S. economy this spring as poor.
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The latest AP-NORC polling from May found that only about 3 in 10 independents approve of how Trump is handling the economy, in line with the roughly 3 in 10 who said that at the beginning of his second term. The April poll found only about 1 in 10 independents — 12% — approved of how Trump was handling the cost of living.
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This AP-NORC analysis of 4,836 independents was conducted over 21 AP-NORC surveys, blocked into five time periods before and during President Donald Trump’s second term. Independents are classified as panelists who do not select that they identify with or lean toward either the Democratic or Republican Party.
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