JUPITER — Lynne Levin concedes President Donald Trump has had a difficult run through the first 22 months of his second term.
“He’s got a lot on his plate,” said Levin during a Republican get-out-the-vote rally in northeastern Palm Beach County on Sunday, Oct. 18. “I think that he’s had a real rough go.”
Nonetheless, Levin, a former pediatric therapist with political campaign experience, is supporting Republicans up and down the ballot on Nov 3. They include U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody and U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, both of whom spoke briefly at the event in a parking lot at of the Jupiter Victory campaign office.
“I adore Donald Trump," said Levin, who acknowledged her own opposition to the war in Iran. "He’s improved businesses. He’s improved our standing
in the world. ... He’s brought a lot of businesses from overseas back here.”
Across the country, that is a minority view these days, public opinion surveys suggest.
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos survey released just hours before the Jupiter put Trump's approval rating at an unprecedented low of just 33%. A recent Fox News poll found just 22% of those asked gave him a favorable rating on handling inflation.
That poll, plus another by NBC News, found just 76% of Republicans across the country are happy with the president's performance. Even in Florida, which Trump won two years ago by 13 points, his approval ranking is underwater.
The attendees at the Jupiter event were undeterred.
Richard Gore also praised Trump's efforts to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
“Right now, inflation is hitting, and if we can actually go back to the gold standard, it will balance everything out,” Gore said.
Reid Ferris is an 18-year-old senior at Jupiter Christian School who pointed to Charlie Kirk, the late conservative activist and outspoken Trump supporter, as a political influence.
“What gets me out to vote and what I believe in is rooted in what Charlie Kirk believed in," Ferris said of the slain political activist. "The youth built this country, and the youth can change it.”
He added that abortion is his biggest concern heading into the election.
“That’s always been a big problem in this country, and I believe has divided this country,” he said.
Moody, who is running to keep the seat she was appointed to in 2025 after Marco Rubio left the U.S. Senate to become Trump's secretary of state, took aim at her Democratic opponent, Angie Nixon.
“I am running against a self-declared proud socialist,” Moody said to cheers from the crowd. “She signed up for a platform that wants to defund the police, kneecap our military, let noncitizens vote, abolish our prisons, and wreck our constitutional framework that protects your rights.”
Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has rejected that she supports all of the organization's viewpoints in media interviews.
The Oct. 18 event took place as President Trump was wrapping up his 28th sojourn to Palm Beach this term, and a day after hundreds of people across the county participated in "No Kings" protests. It occurred just 16 days before the Nov. 3 voting that will determine whether Republicans will keep control of Congress, with Trump’s party defending narrow majorities in both the House and Senate.
Willy Guardiola, a Palm Beach County conservative activist and a longtime organizer of pro-Trump rallies, conceded there is angst among the MAGA crowd in the Palm Beaches.
“Some of the MAGA supporters that have been with him since 2016, they’re just frustrated, and they’re always calling me asking me ‘What's going on? Is Trump listening to you?’ ” said Guadiola, who attended the Jupiter rally wearing a MAGA hat and an American flag shirt featuring a GOP elephant.
Guardiola recently circulated an open letter addressed to the president — whom he said he writes to about three times a year — expressing frustration with his handling of the war in Iran, rising prices and growing impatience among supporters.
Unlike Levin, however, he wants Trump to take stronger military action against Iran.
“Even our own Trump MAGA supporters are beginning to lose faith in your domestic strategies, as well as your foreign policies,” he wrote in the public beseeching. “We need to go back and finish the job in Iran; bring down gas prices; pass the Save America Act ASAP.”
Still, Guardiola said Trump needs to spend more time addressing problems at home.
“Look what our country is going through right now," he said. "Instead of fighting Cuba and Venezuela and Iran, we need to take care of people here. He’s just got too many things going on at the same time.”
Despite those frustrations, Guardiola said he remains satisfied with Trump’s approach to immigration, his biggest concern heading into the election. Trump has boasted that his administration has stopped immigrant entries at the border with Mexico, though his broad deportation plan has come under consistent criticism.
“Immigration is the thing that has killed this country,” he said. “(Immigrants) are taking up people’s jobs and everything and it’s hurtful to see that going on. … We need to stop that immediately because it’s going to get worse.”
Despite differing concerns, attendees shared one message: Republicans need to show up at the polls.
For Levin, that was a singular message above issues and polls.
“We need to get people out in numbers to vote,” Levin said. “You may not love everybody that’s out there, but you must vote because this is a choice between good and evil.”
Guardiola said a Republican loss in November could add yet another item to Trump’s already lengthy to-do list/already crowded agenda.
“If we lose the House, we’re going to be in trouble because all we’re going to hear for the next three years is ‘impeachment, impeachment, impeachment,’ ” Guardiola said.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: At Jupiter rally, Republicans commit to getting voters out on Nov. 3
