With President Biden and former President Donald Trump facing off in Atlanta tomorrow — the year’s highly anticipated first presidential debate — The Post spoke to swing-state voters who were for or leaned Biden in 2020 and are considering Trump this election.
What’s led them to abandon the Democrat? And what do they want to hear the Republican say — and not say — during the debate?
IMMIGRATION
Recent college graduate Marc Hernandez, 25, said watching his border community be “torn apart so quickly” led him to be “hard Trump” after supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.
“I grew up in Douglas, Ariz., on the border. It was a quiet and peaceful small town before I left for college. After I came back, our only local grocery store closed, most community businesses closed and our town has a drug problem that didn’t exist before.
“I’m Mexican, and my family immigrated to the US. So in 2016, I believed that Trump was racist and hated Hispanics. Today I see that Trump was right, and I support building a wall and closing the border,” he said.
Douglas is located in the Tucson Sector, which has seen some of the highest numbers of migrant encounters along the southern border.
Madison, Wis., stay-at-home mom, homeschooler and Turning Point ballot chaser Kim Smith, 45, didn’t vote in 2016 because she was “so angry the Democrats handed her Hillary Clinton.” She “slowly made the transition from Democrat” to a Trump supporter.
Immigration is one of her main issues this election. “It is scary, the amount of people coming over the border. It’s superseded the population of Wisconsin, and it’s putting stress on our infrastructure,” Smith said.
“In Madison we are in this bubble,” she continued. “And we don’t see the consequences of our voting actions until it’s too late.”
Immigration is a big issue for Justin Quinton, a 31-year-old small-business owner in Waukesha County, Wis., whose family emigrated from Mexico and became American citizens.
He’d like to hear Trump discuss how to speed up the immigration process, “integrating immigrants into society and how to get rid of the stigma surrounding legal immigration” more than he’d like to hear Trump talk about “building a wall.”
ECONOMY
“There’s no way I would ever vote again for the man behind such a weak economy. I care too much about my kids,” Lansing, Mich., business owner Sharon said. “The economy is my No. 1 issue. I genuinely don’t see how Biden could do better next term than he did in this one,” she added. “I certainly can’t afford to wait and see if he does.”
She thinks Trump “should talk about his plans to grow our economy and help it make sense again.”
“I do think overall Trump will win,” she said. “Biden can barely speak.”
CRIME
“Absolutely,” Milwaukee small-business owner Charlene Abughrin, 47, said when asked if she’s supporting Trump this year. She started a movement in Milwaukee called Kinfolk, holding events to inform people about city, state and federal policy, after becoming frustrated with the status quo.
“Democrats have been in office so long, but we’re still not seeing any forward movement. It’s business as usual: Streets still run down. Crime is up. We don’t have good laws on the books,” she said.
“We are really suffering, especially the impoverished are definitely struggling to make ends meet.”
AGE
“Four years ago, I thought casting another vote for Biden would be easy,” recalled Ben, an Akron, Ohio, student. “I was looking forward to it. Today I am so disappointed. The leader I was so proud of lost focus and chose to prioritize himself way too much. He had the chance to be a real leader,” he said, “but I feel like he’s become a politician.”
But Trump must work for his vote: “I want to hear Trump say something about his tangible first-year plans to truly get me on board. It’s not his first time, so he shouldn’t act like he’s starting from scratch.”
Quinton considers himself a moderate — and liked Trump’s policies during his four years in office. Asked why Biden lost his support, he said, “Honestly, I just don’t think he’s fit.”
Mark, a Cleveland teacher, voted for Biden because “I honestly didn’t think he’d live this long,” he said. “Trump will win on Thursday unless Biden is on something to keep his eyes open.”
TAKEN FOR GRANTED
“I have always voted Democrat,” said Roslyn Ross Williams, a black ex-Democratic Party activist now a community organizer on the right. “It’s just because that’s what you did in my community.”
The Philadelphia native led a Democratic women’s group metro Atlanta for two years before moving back to work for the party in Pennsylvania.
Dems “have not done anything for those of us in the black community,” she said, “yet they constantly pander for our vote.”
They won’t get hers anymore: “At this particular point, there’s really nothing that the administration — and I’m not gonna say Joe Biden, it’s the administration, period — can really say to somebody like myself to ever get me to vote for them again.” It’s set “us on a path of destruction and decline.”
Of Trump, she said, “I know that his mouth has gotten him in a lot of trouble. I wish that he could humble himself a little bit and speak a little bit more without ego to the people. But I believe that he is very much more sincere in the things that he promises, that he’s going to do for America” — “restoring that border, getting some control over that border and helping with individual [Democratic-run] cities like ours [Philadelphia] that have become rundown.”
“I think this is gonna be the hottest debate that there has ever been in America because our country is truly in trouble,” she concluded. “I’m expecting to see a real big fight.”
