Trump Merch Sellers Reveal Brutal Reality as Stores Shut Down
Lame duck trinkets were never in.
Mario Tama/Mario Tama/Getty Images
The MAGA merchandise gold rush is showing signs it’s winding down.
Gift shops selling Trump-adjacent inventory, from hats to novelty wine glasses, have been dotted around the country for most of the last decade, but now their days may be numbered.
NPR reports that at least four have closed around the country this year alone, while online Trump department store MAGA Mall’s sales have dropped by 30 percent.
Trump merch has been big business.
Piroschka Van De Wouw/REUTERS
The 80-year-old is hurtling towards the final quarter of his presidential lifespan and is expected to take hit after brutal hit from a blue wave in the midterms on Nov. 3.
“People were not wearing their colors, so to speak, like they did before the (2024) election,” former Trump superstore owner Bill Hays told the broadcaster.
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He opened the store in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2024, claiming he earned $200,000 a month in those early days, with lines of 80 people snaking out the door.
“After the inauguration, I think a lot of people felt that their job was done,” he said. “They didn’t have to promote MAGA or Trump.”
Other presidents haven't become as marketable.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Ahead of the midterms, some vendors are getting twitchy.
“I don’t want to be sitting holding thousands and thousands of dollars of Trump merchandise and absolutely no possibility of selling it,” Rick Kligman, the owner of two stores in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, told NPR.
The president is enduring historically low approval ratings, driven by several unpopular policies, sky-high gas and grocery prices, and the war with Iran.
Hays said his policies, particularly the massive DOGE cuts to government personnel led by Tesla tycoon Elon Musk, stand out among those bad decisions.
His supporters have shown they are by buying things with his face on in their droves.
Nathan Howard/REUTERS
President of the online retailer MAGA Mall, Ron Solomon, said MAGA stores pivoting to more general patriotic inventory was part of the natural flow of business, adding that about 20 dedicated MAGA stores remained nationwide.
“He’s no longer a viable business model for entrepreneurs because he has peaked,” Trump superfan Wes Alker told NPR at a Trump store closing-down sale in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.
It comes as Trump dances with historically low approval ratings that have buoyed Democrats ahead of the midterms.
They believe even some deep-red states could flip, such as Ohio, which Trump won by 11 points in 2024.
A CNN Poll from earlier this month put Sherrod Brown ahead by six points against Republican incumbent John Husted in the state’s Senate race.
In Iowa’s race for the same office, the same poll said there was no clear winner projectable between the GOP’s Ashley Hinson and the Democratic candidate Josh Turek. The state was deep red in 2024.
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