Last November, Jennifer Piggott pulled the lever for Donald Trump a third time. But the church-going conservative, the heart of the president’s base, says she will never do it again.
Piggott was one of 125 people recently fired from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Services in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Reuters reports. Nearly 4 percent of the state’s workforce is or was employed by the federal government. Only two states, Virginia and Maryland, have a higher percentage of federal workers.
So Elon Musk‘s unprecedented elimination of civil service jobs — about 30,000 workers have been fired by the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency since mid-February — will impact West Virginia more than most states, said West Virginia University economics professor John Deskins.
“If the federal layoffs happen, we stand to suffer a disproportionate share when those jobs disappear, when that income disappears, when that spending leaves the state economy,” Deskins told Reuters.
And the job losses are just getting started. Another round of cuts has been ordered at all federal agencies for March 13.
Which makes West Virginia an interesting case study. Few states turned out larger margins for Trump; 70 percent of its vote went to the president, and in three elections, he’s never received less than 68 percent of West Virginia’s vote.
So far, support for Trump’s agenda remains strong. Nationally, a Reuters poll found the president’s approval rating holding steady at 44 percent.
“I’m so thankful that Trump is pushing through despite these sad stories,” wrote a female Trump supporter on X. “Of course, it’s sad when someone loses a job, but we MUST cut down the size of government. It takes some serious cajones to do what he’s doing, and I sure as hell appreciate it! He is doing exactly what most of us who voted for him wanted him to do.”
In West Virginia, where Reuters recently interviewed three dozen workers, business owners, and politicians who live in Parkersburg, nearly all agreed that Trump’s focus on cutting government spending was a worthy goal.
“Cutting costs and waste and fraud …we love that big picture,” said Piggott, 47. “I love that picture. We were excited about that because it is true.”
But voting for Trump again – “voting for Elon Musk, essentially, to wreck people’s lives,” Piggott said – is something she said she just can’t do.
Even though Trump loyalists have proposed a constitutional change allowing the president to have a third term, as it stands now, Trump cannot be re-elected president.
Piggott, who worked for the bureau for five years and was recently promoted, said most people assume government workers knew this was coming.
“But we didn’t,” she said. “Nobody that I’ve talked to understands the devastation that having this administration in office would do to our lives.”
“As much as I think that President Trump is doing wonderful things for the country in some regards, I don’t understand this at all,” she added.
Asked if she felt betrayed by the president, Piggott replied, “Absolutely, yes, I feel a little bit betrayed.”
But Piggott shouldn’t expect to get much sympathy. So far, she’s received a cold reaction from Trump opponents online who’ve seen the Reuters report.
“She voted for Trump because clearly his policies were supposed to affect other people she doesn’t know or them over there, not her,” wrote one critic on X. “Play stupid games and win stupid prizes. SMH.”
“They refused to listen and now they got what they deserved,” opined another never-Trumper. “I bet you they’re gonna start voting Democratic in 2026.”
