(This post may be triggering. Please be advised.)
“I won’t vote for Biden,” a Democrat living in Michigan told me today. This regular primary voter isn’t Arab-American, doesn’t have any complaints about his presidency, in fact, said he was grateful for it, just said he can’t. “I can’t myself and i don’t think it is right for the country.”
Who are you going to vote for? Maybe Kennedy (is he on the ballot in Michigan?), maybe Trump.
Trump???
“At least I know he’s up for it.”
One of the things that Hope Springs from Field PAC [website] volunteers are told at their doorsteps is the kind of image that Pres. Biden has in their (voter’s) minds. They are often interesting because it is fascinating to see how voters absorb information, and how they do that.
Why would a Democrat vote for Trump? Because he watched his father “shuffle” and he saw how his father aged afterward. Pres. Biden reminds him of his father and his father’s death.
So i asked how he decided upon this (to me, this voter is an undecided voter, who may come around later) and he said he watched the debate. Nielsen says 51.27 million people saw the CNN debate and this Democrat said it was painful to watch Biden shuffle around. (I think we can all agree that the debate was deeply painful, for many reasons.)
That conclusion coincides with what many voters (Democrats and unaffiliated voters) have been telling us at their doors. But no one has ever suggested Trump was a suitable alternative. At least, that i know of. But this voter offered at viable explanation: he believed that Trump could do the job. He concluded that Biden won’t be able to. “I’ve seen it for myself.”
So while Democrats in D.C. trade stories amongst themselves, apparently voters in the Swing States are doing it as well. Not from their direct experience with the president, but with direct experience with their aging parents.
As part of my long-time practice, i spend about an hour every Thursday (not July 4th!) making what i call my 10/10/10 calls. 10 voters (who we just canvassed last weekend), 10 volunteers (who canvassed last weekend) and 10 organizers. I only devote an hour to this, so sometimes i don’t complete 30 calls. Sometimes it takes me hundreds of calls to talk to (not always) 10 voters, volunteers and organizers.
I do voters first, because if i talked to a voter who said they didn’t talk to a volunteer (as they attested), i would want to talk to that volunteer. Sometimes organizer calls go to a text exchange instead of a full blown conversation. But, for the most part, volunteers and voters enjoy these interactions. Voters because they often ask about what we are doing, what is the purpose. Volunteers because we believe that what we do early will really matter in the outcome of this election.
I don’t get the sense that the voters i’ve talked to since the debate are aware of all the commotion it has raised within the Democratic activist base. This voter didn’t feel isolated — he believed there were many Democrats in Michigan who felt as he did. Self-similarity is always around us. But let’s not deceive ourselves that voters who supported Biden wouldn’t switch over to Trump. Hard to see, but there it is.
He also told me that he was voting for “Congresswoman Slotkin,” which i was impressed he knew her name.
Are you in the 7th? i asked. He wasn’t. I’m writing that down. Good!
But i asked why. And one of his reasons why because she hadn’t rushed to “affirm” Biden’s fitness for the job. “He’s the Commander-in-Chief, it’s an awesome responsibility and we’ve watched presidents age. She’s a serious person.”
The thing is i had company for this conversation. An old friend asked to sit in on this portion of my calls, and made the trip over. I know why, but it is what it is. Swing State voters are on our minds. I don’t think we are on their’s...