Nestled in a strip mall in suburban Philadelphia, The Trump Store is hard to miss with its all-caps sign in bold next to a photo of President Trump hugging the American flag. But after six years of drawing MAGA supporters from all over, the 800-square-foot store that sports everything from hats and watches emblazoned with the president’s name is closing.
The store’s owner, 56-year-old Mike Domanico, said that, with sales down, it was time.
“He’s not running again,” Mr. Domanico said of the president, who is barred from seeking a third term by the Constitution. “When something’s happening like an election’s coming up or something in the news happens with Trump, the sales jump. But since there’s no election coming up, things have slowed down.”
By the time Mr. Domanico decided to close the store on Jan. 31, he was making roughly 30 sales per day — just a fraction of what he once earned.
He recalled making about 100 sales per day in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, and roughly double or triple that amount when the store first opened to immense demand in February 2020, when Mr. Trump was seeking re-election after his first term.
“I did very well for the store for six years and it’s just time to move on for me,” he said. The store owner said he wanted to focus on his other businesses, including selling gun-related items.
The store, in Bensalem, Pa., was a magnet for the Make America Great Again crowd. Large numbers of the politically like-minded gathered in its parking lot for pro-Trump rallies leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
“It was a place that you could go to sing and dance and celebrate Trump,” said Bobbie Murphy, who frequented the store and its rallies. She added, “It put Bensalem on the map. They came from everywhere for that store.”
Ms. Murphy, a real estate agent in Bensalem, has collected 50 to 100 pieces of Trump merchandise over the years, including shirts, hats, stuffed animals and tree ornaments.
“We think small. We don’t think big,” like the president, she said.
Adam Berinsky, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab, said that kind of loyalty is why he would warn against viewing the store’s closure as a sign that the president’s core base was faltering — even if he’s unpopular with the general public.
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Yphtach Lelkes, an associate professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania, similarly said that the president’s most loyal supporters are unlikely to leave him. But the decline in sales could signal less enthusiasm among more casual Trump backers who might think twice before sporting a MAGA hat in public.
“It’s not only what you believe, but what you perceive other people believe,” he said. “So if you’re a Trump supporter and you can increasingly see people around you dislike him, it’s going to be riskier to go around donning that signal.”
Mr. Trump’s approval rating is mired at 42 percent, according to a New York Times polling average. The only presidency this century that had a lower approval rating at this point in a term was also Mr. Trump’s, during his first term.
Mr. Domanico said he has been a Trump supporter since the 1980s. He admired Mr. Trump’s ambition and success as a real estate developer, and watched “The Apprentice” religiously.
In 2019, he was a general contractor and selling T-shirts at local car shows when someone requested he make Trump T-shirts. He brought about 20 Trump T-shirts to the next car show, and sold out in about half an hour. He began setting up a “Trump 2020” tent in front of his office once a week where he peddled more Trump gear.
“Immediately it was a hit,” he said.
Once a week soon became daily. He moved the growing business to a kiosk at Neshaminy Mall, several miles down the road from the closing brick-and-mortar store, for a couple months before finding its final home at the strip mall, which also features Latin American and Chinese eateries as well as an African goods store.
“It took me a couple months to find somewhere, because as soon as I said Trump store to any of the landlords, they were like no way, we don’t want any problems with our building,” Mr. Domanico said.
The store opened in February 2020 to fanfare among conservatives in the swing county with lines out the door. He sold out in the first week.
“It was nuts from the very beginning and one thing led to another and it was crazy and we had a lot of fun with it,” he said.
