A group of self-described former "MAGA diehards" has detailed what pushed them to turn sharply against President Donald Trump, with one saying she keeps a bottle of champagne chilled for the day he leaves office.

The accounts appeared in a report published Monday by The i Paper, a British national newspaper, which examined how the president's historically unpopular second term has cost him the support of voters who gave him a chance in 2024 — including a not-insignificant number who once considered themselves part of his most loyal base.

Trump still holds considerable sway over his devoted MAGA following and the Republican Party at large, in part because of how effective he has been at launching primary challenges against perceived enemies. Even so, the report found that a stream of onetime followers have walked away over the past 20 months and change — departures that stand out precisely because they come from inside a base otherwise known for its durability.

Among them is Courtney Rosenberg, a 38-year-old telecoms account executive from Detroit. She told the outlet she was once "all in" on Trump and embraced the false narratives and conspiracies surrounding his movement, "including that slaves who were brought to America in the 1800s were coming for a better life and that Democrats were trafficking children through cabinets sold by Wayfair, the US homeware retailer." The Wayfair claim was among the baseless conspiracy theories that spread widely online in 2020 and were subsequently debunked by fact-checkers. She regarded Trump at the time as the "perfect candidate" and bought into his pledge to "drain the swamp," a signature promise of his 2016 campaign.

Her feelings have since shifted dramatically. "I hate him and I have a bottle of champagne in the fridge for when he leaves office," she said. "He is an evil person. It feels like he wakes up every day and thinks: 'How can I needlessly hurt people?'"

Rosenberg said she had long been drawn to "strong, powerful men like her early boyfriends and their fathers" and recognized the same energy in Trump. Watching him on The Apprentice, the NBC reality show he began hosting in 2004, also led her to believe he could run the country the way he ran his real estate businesses.

After the 2020 election — and especially after what she called the "mortifying" January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a pro-Trump crowd stormed the building — she spent two years educating herself on the history of racism and capitalism and switched political sides. She now describes herself as close to a "Democratic socialist."

"Trump is the personification of what a lot of this country was built on, greed and selfishness," she said. "I really thought he was very charismatic. I loved his candor … regardless of all the things that were rough or crass … It charmed me."

Rosenberg connected with others on a similar path through the "Leaving MAGA" movement, which includes "a few dozen former Trumpers who meet every Tuesday for a support group they jokingly call MA, or 'MAGA Anonymous.'"

Founded in 2024 by ex-MAGA activist Rich Logis, the group has put up signs in 27 US states to reach people who have soured on Trump, according to the report. "Having Doubts? You Are Not Alone," the billboards read, alongside a link to the website LeavingMAGA.org.

"The way to look at MAGA is not through the prism of ideology but through the community it provides," Logis explained. "It's a community where [many] feel seen and heard and appreciated for the first time. We don't refer to MAGA as a cult because we want to get people out of it. Calling them cultists makes them dig their heels in deeper. We want to give them a pathway to leave."

Logis said he joined the MAGA movement after moving to Florida from New York and came to view Trump as a candidate who would "obliterate the political order."

"I viewed Trump as the titular leader of a new movement that I considered to be something akin to a second founding of America," he said. "There was a very militant mindset within MAGA. Our point of view was, if you're not 100 per cent with us you're 100 percent against us. Now I realize I was addicted to fear and rage and that fear and rage kept me in these perpetual states of despair, panic and paranoia."