The steel mill where Patti Stroud’s husband worked for 26 years shut down a few weeks before Election Day in 2016. Though she is a registered Democrat, Ms. Stroud had long since drifted away from the party over its liberal social policies. So she voted for Donald J. Trump, hoping he would shake up Washington and bring back steel, the way he promised.

“I’m not a loyal anything,” she said. “I used to vote straight Democrat all the time, but those times have changed.”

Sixteen months later, Ms. Stroud, a 56-year-old house cleaner, feels politically adrift again.

“I thought we needed a big change, and boy, did we get it,” she said ruefully outside an I.G.A. market recently. President Trump “put his foot in his mouth one too many times,” she said.