An Unprecedented Election—and Its Bitter Aftermath—Seen from Across the Country

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November 15, 2020

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“I think you have to accept the vote. I think it’s ignorant not to. I mean, what can you do, like [the Democrats] did for four years, be angry, be mad?”

Jane Smith

In many ways the campaign for the White House in 2020 began the instant Donald Trump took the stage early on the morning of Nov. 9, 2016 to announce he had won the presidency. Almost from that instant, we began to ask whether the most untraditional and divisive president of the modern era could win again.

Over the course of four years — through the ordeals of the Russian investigation, impeachment, Supreme Court nominations, primary elections, police killings and a summer of protest, and finally a once-in-a-century pandemic — POLITICO Magazine dispatched writers across the country, seeking clues to the depth and durability of Trump’s support. We went to red pockets in blue states and blue enclaves in red states. We sought out suburban women and Venezuelan immigrants, young Black families in the south and older white couples in the Midwest. In a moment of intense and seemingly permanent partisanship, we about why they had made the choices they did and what, if anything, might persuade them to change their minds.

Their stories provided real insight about the shifting contours of support for Trump, and, the factors that ultimately tipped the election in Joe Biden’s favor. In the aftermath of the record-setting turnout, as the counting dragged on for several tense days and the president insisted the election had been rigged against him, we reached out to a sampling of the people whose views had informed our coverage along the way. We wanted to know what this unprecedented election looked like after months (even years) of anticipation. We have paired quotes that appeared in POLITICO stories over the past four years with fresh interviews done since Election Day. We are still a deeply divided nation, as you will see, but it’s not hard to detect on both sides a stubborn hopefulness of better times ahead.

The parents of children who were born on or around the day Donald Trump was first elected president don’t fall into any one political category. But none of them have remained indifferent to the raging debate surrounding his presidency.

Marisa Erickson

40, Centereach, N.Y.

She and her husband, Jimmy, waited in line outside for one hour to cast their votes for Trump on Election Day. Jimmy voted for Trump in 2016. Marisa did not vote.

Justine and Adam Treat

Veazie, Maine

Justine, a Republican, voted for Trump in 2016 and Adam, an independent, voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson. This time both of them voted for Biden.

Jamila and Argentino Carver

Greensboro, N.C.

Jamila and Argentino, who goes by AJ, voted for Biden. Because of their strong views about racism and law enforcement, they were initially hesitant about Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor but they appreciated her historic spot on the presidential ticket.

Then

Over the summer, as protests were taking place across the country, the family saw half a dozen police officers on break outside a local burger and ice-cream joint. “Bad guys,” Adonis, 3, said to his family. “All cops aren’t bad guys. I don’t want to teach him that,” Jamila explains, but she also told me, “I have to worry about their life.”

Now

“I’m excited,” Jamila says. “I can’t wait to see what the game plan is for someone who thinks the coronavirus is actually real, and that they are looking out for the American people, and that we are going to take care of the Coronavirus. I can’t wait to see the U.S. out front again and not disrespecting other nations.”

“The one positive thing that came out of Trump’s four years of his administration,” Argentino says, “is exposing how many racist people there are in America. I never knew how many people. I’m not saying everyone who voted for Trump is racist but a lot of them are.”

Vigo County, Indiana was long known as a bellwether in presidential elections. Its predominantly conservative voters were thrilled to have helped send Trump to the White House four years ago. Their streak is broken but not their support for the outgoing president.

Jane Smith

Vigo County, Ind.

Then

“Oh, Trump—I’m still all Trumped up,” Jane, a retired insurance broker, told me, reveling in the memory of that night one recent weekday afternoon over lunch at Logan’s Rib-Eye, a wood-paneled budget steakhouse situated in Terre Haute, a town along the Wabash River at the intersections of U.S. Highways 40 and 41, just off Interstate 70. Terre Haute proudly calls itself the “Crossroads of America,” a title Indiana would later adopt as its state motto.

“The people we’ve talked to are thrilled,” Jane relayed, ignoring Dick. She has noticed a change in her daily mood since Trump was elected. There’s a lightness now that she hadn’t known for the past eight years during the days of Obama. “I feel happy. I’m happy. I like what he’s doing. You don’t feel like someone is selling out the country—”

Now

“I think you have to accept the vote. I think it’s ignorant not to. I mean, what can you do, like they [Democrats] did for four years, be angry, be mad? That just hurts yourself. It turns you into an ugly person and I don't want to do that. Will I be happy about it? No. Do I think our nation will never be free again? Yeah, I really believe that. In my heart, I believe already the media has taken over. I believe that there'll be a tax. I think you’ll be a lot poorer.”

“I hope that he [Trump] will continue to go to cities and rally, regardless. I think that'd be good for the nation, we need that. I would hope to hear him rally around the people, about maybe some suggestions of what might be, not just go beat up on Biden and be negative but rally the people around it. ‘You're still Americans. You still care. Do the best you can. Hang in there.’”’

The Hispanic vote in Florida was one of the deciding factors in keeping that key swing state in Trump’s column. Venezuelan voters, strongly influenced by their shared history living under dictators in their home country, responded to Trump’s criticism of Biden as a socialist. Some though detected an authoritarian streak in Trump himself.

Diego Scharifker

30, Fairfax, Va.

Then

In conversations with fellow Venezuelans, Scharifker says he has seen a dichotomy emerging: “Either you’re with Venezuela and you have to be a Republican, or you’re with Chávez and Maduro and the dictatorship.” But to Scharifker, it’s Trump who reminds him of the place he fled: “Trump personified the things I rejected in Chávez and Maduro: the demagoguery, the populism, bending state institutions to his own convenience and his own agenda, the use of power to divide.”

Now

“It’s impressive to feel that for the first time in my life, my vote worked to elect a president where there actually was a democratic competition and my vote was part of that process. This is a really exciting moment for me as a Venezuelan, as an American, as a recent immigrant, and I’m really happy to be living this historic moment.

“Now comes a really important moment after the euphoria and the excitement that the new administration actively works to become the president of all Americans and not just those who voted for him, and to reduce the huge polarization and division we have in the United States.”

Andreina Kissane

45, Miami, Fla.

Then

“President Trump was the first president in the history of Venezuela who actually stood up for us.”

“Now they want to defund the police? The wonderful police we have here, we wish we had that in our country,”Kissane says, while adding that she thinks there need to be some reforms to the unwarranted use of force by police. “The police that we had were criminals!”

Now

“Of course Trump should concede if we find no evidence that there was fraud. If there was no fraud, and the necessary investigations were made, and they opened the books as it should be, and there truly was no fraud, of course the president should concede. There’s no doubt about that, that’s part of the system, part of the Constitution.

“What I like about this president is that he’s very clear and very transparent. He loves this country and won’t concede if he doesn’t feel that there was transparency in the system. And we know it wasn’t, so we just have to prove it.”

The night of the election in 2016 did not go as expected for many people around the country. Among the freaked-out was Amy Lee, a Hillary Clinton canvasser in Dayton, Ohio who had been planning to celebrate Clinton's win with some of her fellow Democrat operatives. A POLITICO reporter called her just before 10 p.m. when a series of states were being called for Trump.

Amy Lee

Dayton, Ohio

Then

“We are really, really, really scared,” she said. “I do think this election is about what America is. Obama treated us like adults. And tonight we are proving that we are not a nation of adults. I just can’t believe it.” She said: “I’m not going to sleep anytime soon.”

Now

“I’m starting to see like a little bit more upside than just feeling that we dodged a bullet. I mean, I thought that Kamala’s speech was really, really super inspiring. And even Joe Biden's speech was very just reassuring and I really liked that he just said the thing about, ‘Can we just all move forward together?’ I am tired of distrusting other people's politics and feeling like they're out to hurt, you know, my team and I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want us to get through this coronavirus together. I would personally like to start working on some climate change stuff together, if we kind of quit having a, you know, a knife fight. That seems to be Joe Biden's M.O. And just his whole general aura seems really, really reassuring. I really like it. I feel much, much better.

The mid-term elections in 2018 were a moment to assess the extent of Trump’s sway over his party and also the power of the Democratic resistance. One of the politicians who was caught in the middle was Joe Manchin, the long-time Democratic senator from a state that was all-in for Trump.

Rusty Williams

Peach Creek, W. Va.

Then

“I know a lot of people that voted for him, and I don’t know one person that did it happily,” said Rusty Williams, a Bernie Sanders and Richard Ojeda supporter and medical marijuana activist. “One of the quotes I keep hearing is, ‘Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little bit when I voted for Joe [Manchin].’” Ballots, of course, don’t reflect such mixed feelings. Votes are votes.

Now

“I would have voted for a baked potato over Donald Trump. I wasn't the biggest Joe Biden fan. I really looked deep into the policies that he and Kamala [Harris] are talking about, you know, as far as ideas and plans for criminal justice reform. I liked those things, but in the first debate, when the president was lobbed the easiest softball question to knock out of the park: ‘Will you denounce white supremacy?’ He refused to do it. That made me all in for Biden and Harris, immediately, I went from someone who was just going to vote for Biden because he's not Trump.

“You know, um, it's exactly what I expected to happen. He's a narcissist and that's what narcissists do. It's typical of narcissistic behavior to project: The things you're guilty of, you're projecting them on everybody else. We've had more than a few presidents I disagreed with ideologically, but when they spoke no matter how much I may have disagreed, I always wanted to tune in and listen to what they had to say. I got rid of cable TV about the time that reality TV shows started to become a thing. And, um, you know, I think that was a great decision. And every time I try to watch him say anything, I feel like, ‘Oh yeah, this is exactly why you don’t have television in your house anymore.’ I typically just turn him off.”

For the half of the electorate who knew they would never vote for Donald Trump the paramount question was which of the many Democratic contenders would present the most formidable opposition. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., was a surprisingly strong contender. Biden, at least for a time, seemed less attractive.

John Dabrowski

Galivants Ferry, S.C.

Then

“Mayor Pete’s a selfless servant,” John Dabrowski told me. He’s 37, lives on Pawleys Island and works in sales at a brewery in Myrtle Beach. He’s not happy with Trump, whom he called “a bully.” After his wife, Peta, got turned on to Buttigieg by drinking wine and watching YouTube videos, Dabrowski, too, identified the alternative he was looking for. He thinks Buttigieg is the person who can beat the president. “We can’t put somebody that’s gonna ostracize Republicans that are moderates like me, fiscal conservatives but also super liberal in other, you know, social aspects.”

But what about Biden?

“No,” he said.

“He’s old guard. I believe in term limits, and Joe’s not gonna do it for me. I mean, we don’t need somebody that’s been doing it for all these years. I want somebody that’s gonna be around for the policies that they’re gonna write, OK? Mayor Pete, if we put in some type of green policy or some type of coal policy, he’s going to see the repercussions because he’s going to be around for it. Biden’s not gonna be around for 30 years to see the effects of his policies—and that matters to me. Doesn’t that carry more weight? I want somebody to be living with their policy.”

Now

“We are definitely excited about the future and hopefully we’ll be able to come together as a nation. A lot of my friends that were on the other spectrum of the vote are handling it better than I expected, better than a lot of my [Democratic] friends four years ago did. I’m excited to see how we do coming together and keep moving forward.

“The best message [on Facebook] I saw was from a friend of mine who's on the completely opposite political side as I am. He said, ‘Congratulations to my Democratic friends. Yes, I have many, and I love you all people and hope this helps our nation work together to get past this virus moving forward one nation, one race, just Americans, and that's from some diehard Trump supporters. So, you know, that's promising. That is very encouraging.”

The summer was dominated by protests over the numerous killings of Black people by police officers. The protests were mostly peaceful but Trump fixated on rioters to stoke fears of spreading crime. His target audience were women in the suburbs.

Susan Sandler

Cornelius. N.C.

Then

A few years back, in the middle of the day in the middle of a week in the spring, in the parking garage of an upscale mall in Charlotte half an hour south from her house here in the suburbs, Susan Sandler was attacked. A young Black man in a hoodie hit her in the side of the head as she walked to her car. He knocked her unconscious and dragged her across the concrete, took her purse and her wedding ring and left her with ripped jeans and bleeding knees.

If anybody, I thought, might be receptive to the president’s racially loaded warnings of crime spreading from cities and promises to keep the suburbs safe …

“Um, no,” said Sandler, a Democrat who is 59, white and married to a Republican who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and will again (she thinks) come November.

“He fuels the fire and wants to make people like me feel like it’s coming this way,” she said Monday. “It’s just Trump’s rhetoric to try to scare people.”

Now

“It's like the people that drank the Kool-Aid. It’s like it won't get out of their system. It has stained them from the inside out. And it’s not the Republican Party, because I grew up with two Republican parents and my husband's Republican and this is not the Republican party. This is Trumpism.

“I was walking at the park with a friend and I got in my car and saw [the news], and it was, like, this peace. It was peace. I wasn't like jumping up and down. Cause I knew. It was inevitable. I felt like it was, but it was just this calm and peace and like, ‘Okay. The world, we’re going to be all right.’ It was just peace. I don’t care what he does. It’s like, just go away.”

Republican politicians like Maine’s Senator Susan Collins found it increasingly difficult to separate themselves from an increasingly unpopular president. Supreme Court nominations became a lightning rod for criticism and a test of Collins’ reputation as an independent lawmaker.

Cheryl Staples

Skowhegan, Maine

Then

Cheryl Staples, a sea glass artist and one-time Collins voter said she feels like Trump’s attempt to rush a Supreme Court nomination and approval process feels like the worst in party politics.“We expect Collins to go with her conscience, not her party. It’s going to take more than saying she won’t vote until the election to demonstrate that.”

Staples, 63, says she’d like to hear Collins make a more formal statement that she will refuse to participate in the Supreme Court nomination process until after the new president and Congress have been sworn in. She’d like to see Collins talk about the importance of honoring Ginsburg’s wishes and actively caucus to convert other Republicans to this position as well.

Now

“It was important to me that she keep her word about Amy Coney Barrett, but that was not the deciding factor. In the end, I did end up voting for Collins. I think she got a good wake-up call from the people of Maine and will be giving more thought towards what we really need. I voted for her mostly because of her experience. She knows how to play the game and how the system works. I just felt like [Sara] Gideon didn’t have the experience and the maturity to get in there and really help Mainers. Going forward, I hope Collins will really focus on COVID and how to both keep citizens safe and the economy going.”

Dick Enright

Skowhegan, Maine

Then

Dick Enright, a retired Air Force medic, said he considers himself an independent-minded Democrat. He said he supported Collins until the approval of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

“He’s a bad person and not fit for the court,” said Enright. “I trusted her to take a stand on his fitness.” Now, he said, it’s only right that she insist Republicans refrain from any nomination hearings until after the new Senate is seated in January. “Fair is fair. [Mitch] McConnell blocked Obama when he had the reins. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Now

“I was feeling pretty good about Collins’ defeat leading up to the election. It looked like the predictions were going to go my way, but apparently they haven’t. I’d like to tell Collins that there’s still time for her to decide to retire. And she can take Mitch McConnell with her.”

Les Fossel

Alna, Maine

Then

It’s that appearance of political calculation that really rankles Les Fossel, a lifelong Republican who lives in Knox County, part of the state’s largely blue 1st Congressional District. He served in the state Legislature for six years and as Collins’ Knox County campaign chair for all of her elections.

When the state GOP asked him to serve again this year, he declined. As far as he was concerned, Collins had been on a slippery partisan slide for way too long. First there was the Kavanaugh confirmation. Then there was Collins’ unwillingness to allow evidence in Trump’s impeachment trial and her subsequent vote against either of the two impeachment articles. More recently, it was the revelation that U.S. intelligence agencies had been warning about the severity of the pandemic as early as January (Collins serves on the Intelligence Committee, which received at least some of these briefings).

“It was her responsibility to stand up to Trump or get out,” he said. “Instead, she just hid and allowed him to run roughshod.”

Now

“My issues with Susan haven’t changed. She needed to step up to Trump about the pandemic, and she needed to ensure he had a real impeachment trial in the Senate. Susan chose to do everything she could to get reelected, and not everything she could for the people of the state of Maine.”

“It looks like the ACA is going to be ruled unconstitutional, and Roe v. Wade will be right behind. That’s what Susan has brought upon all of us. I can only hope she’ll use this bonus term to get some real courage. I had hoped Republicans would have punished themselves hard enough to be forced to reexamine themselves. That hasn’t happened. And so gridlock is going to continue. For the foreseeable future, I’m a Democrat now.”

Women played a starring role in handicapping of races during the 2020 cycle. Nowhere were they more energized than in Maine, as they debated whether to return Collins to a fifth term.

Hope Eye

Brewer, Maine

Then

Hope Eye, a 27-year-old friend of Cyr’s daughter, grew up just outside of Bangor. She describes herself as a leftist socialist. She voted for Collins in 2016 because she thought that a senator with the kind of experience and power that Collins had would be able to fight for the people of Maine. Then, in 2018, she and a friend gathered letters opposing Kavanaugh’s nomination and delivered them to the Collins’ office. She says she felt “shooed away” by the staff.

“I feel totally ignored by this elected official who is supposed to be accessible to me as a constituent,” she says.

“I honestly don’t recall a single time when she has been an advocate for the working poor. She likes to claim her humble roots, but she consistently lacks empathy for people like me.”

Now

“Sara Gideon ran a very nationalized campaign. She tried to tie Collins to Trump and his behaviors. Collins actually did something very smart, and she ran a more Maine-focused campaign. That’s what she’s good at. Especially in the second district, Mainers tend to be more state centric. They really care about what happens in Maine above all else. Collins knows how to run a campaign and win a major race. Plus, I think there were concerns from both sides about the fact that Gideon comes from away.”

“I still think Collins should retire. I just don’t think she has any relevance anymore. She’s done her job. She’s worked hard. But she still isn’t listening to Mainers. Yes, she refused to vote for Amy Coney Barrett, but that was a very calculated political game. Most people saw that. And she certainly didn’t come out with a big statement like she did with Kavanaugh. If she was willing to do that then, why not with Amy Coney Barrett?”

The delegates who represented their states at the Republican National Convention had no doubts about their support for the president and they haven’t doubted his unsubstantiated allegations of fraud. But they’re willing to accept a Biden presidency.

Don Huizenga

Anoka, Minn.

Then

“I know President Trump is but one man in our government. I know we have an Electoral College system that is about as foolproof a system as exists in the world. I know that America has had peaceful transfers of power under the longest living Constitution on earth despite whatever trials and tribulations exist, some worse than what we see today. I know that the media will spin whatever they can against conservative presidents. I know elections are certified by the state.

I believe that the election might be challenged, but there are enough people involved to draw the correct and true outcome out of it. I know conservatives will accept the outcome that follows the research. I know that liberal minds will not.”

Now

“There’s no reason to not think the results are dubious because they don’t make sense. We can't have 400,000 more people voting for Biden just in Minnesota than voted for Hillary Clinton. And we have only 100,000 more people voting for Trump in 2020 than 2016. In other words, there should be some relativity to the increases in the voter turnout, and there wasn't.... There's nothing in the past that reflects those kind of ratios.

“Oh, absolutely. I mean, you can't feel that somebody's an illegitimate president, because he won an election and they certified him, and then he gets sworn into office, and then he's the president. So I can't buy into the argument that somehow his presidency is less legitimate. He was elected, and he was sworn in. And that's the way the rules work. So yeah, he'll be just as much my president as Trump was.”

Barbara Bowie-Whitman

Alexandria, Va.

Then

“For me to be convinced that Biden has won, I would have to know that he was ahead on election night,” said Barbara Bowie-Whitman, a delegate from Virginia. “Monkeying around with late counted mailed in ballots will not be convincing that there has been an honest election. Democrat-controlled states continue to change the rules for counting. And states allowing ballots to count if they are received well after the election reeks of fraud.”

Now

“I think there will be hardcore people from now and two centuries from now, who will never believe that the result was real. But when you find that, whether you think it's legitimate or not, your remedies have been exhausted, that's when you have to accept it.

“When Jerry Ford lost The White House—I had worked in his White House—I can remember standing in the press room talking to Jim Baker. I said, ‘Why can't we fight the fraud in Wisconsin?’ And he said, ‘Because it will be too much of a nightmare for the country to fight it.’ So election irregularities are nothing new. There have been times when losing candidates have not fought them. This candidate, this incumbent president is not amenable to letting things stand if he really believes there's an injustice, whether it disrupts the country or not. So I do not know at what time it's appropriate to give up.”

Gary Grisafi

Philadelphia, Pa.

Then

“This is happening now, fraud! In Pennsylvania, they found military ballots in the trash, mostly for Trump. How many Trump votes will disappear? This fraud is also happening in other states.”

Now

“If it's over, then of course, you're gonna be a little disappointed, a little pissed off because I live in Philadelphia, the home of the corruption. This city, they know how to run elections. They can do it in a way where they can't get caught. They just have it down to a science.

“The Democrats said Trump was an illegitimate president because Russia helped him. And that turned out to be a hoax. They tortured that poor guy for four years, they just constantly attacked him, nonstop 24/7. But you know what? Life goes on. We're not rioting out there. We're not not showing up for work and crying like they did.

“So I think he will [concede]. I mean, eventually he'll leave office if he loses. He's not gonna stay there like some people say on Facebook, ‘They're gonna have to take them out in handcuffs.’ That's bullshit.”

Kenneth Reid

Norfolk, Va.

Then

“I just don’t think that this fraud business is going to be really paramount. I think the key thing is whether people are going to turn out. And the most important thing is going to be those swing states.”

Now

“He gained the black vote. I mean, that was really very, very impressive. And Latinos, 32 percent. And we kept the Senate. We have the Supreme Court. We increased seats in the House. So in some respects, even though he may very well lose the election, barring some miracle, the Republican Party might be better off.

“I think that if he keeps losing at the court level in these cases, and nothing advances beyond it, there's no movement, then he's going to have to concede the election. And I think he should do that before certainly before the electoral college meets. I mean it's very evident that unless there's some hardcore evidence that there was fraud that led [Biden] to win Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia, what are you going to do?”

Michael Albrecht

Bothell, Wash.

Then

“Obviously, you see a big push by Democrats to rush to mail-in voting. I live in the state of Washington. We do have mail-in voting. And it works. I’ve got to give my secretary of state credit for that—Kim Wyman—because they’ve spent years, probably a decade, working on mail-in voting to make sure it’s a secure and safe election. I can’t say the same for other states. It takes time and it takes a lot of work and money to make it happen.”

Now

“It's not outlandish to say that there could be at least one piece of voter fraud that appears in every election. I mean voter fraud to be as simple as a mailman throwing away a ballot, which in a country of hundreds of millions of people voting or at least 10s of millions of people voting, that's bound to happen, but any evidence of widespread voter fraud, I don't see the evidence for it. But you know, always good to keep an eye out. Because if it affects Joe Biden or affects Donald Trump, it doesn't matter. It's still something that should be corrected.

“I don't think he's going to be dragged out of the White House. I don't think he's gonna just refuse to leave. You'll probably be hearing him a year from now talking about how he was robbed of being president. This is an unfortunate trait of Donald Trump. I think he would have won if it wasn't for his attitude.”

It took a while, but the president’s relentless divisiveness finally began to wear on people who had hoped in 2016 when they first voted for him that he might grow into the job. Exhausted, they turned to the alternative.

Grahm Peschel

Omaha, Neb.

Then

Grahm Peschel, 21, wasn’t old enough to vote in 2016 but said he would have supported Trump to keep Clinton out of the White House. He’s been involved in state and local campaigns since he was 14 and worked for Republican Rep. Don Bacon in 2018. This November, the geography major at University of Nebraska-Omaha said he might write in his own name.

It was about year two of the Trump administration when Peschel started to realize he couldn’t support Trump.

“All of the rude, disrespectful and inappropriate comments that he’s made during the presidency really started coming to light for me, because I wasn’t paying attention to them before he was elected,” he said.

Now

“I did end up writing-in for President, as I simply do not feel that either one of them is qualified for President, and neither one of them do I feel is a leader that I can look up to an be proud of.”

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you whether there was fraud or not, whether there was any inside rigging by political insiders or not. I’m trying to stay neutral on it until I learn more. I certainly believe that it could be possible, but I also find it hard to comprehend it occurring to the extent that is being iterated. So, either way, I believe that the two-party duopoly that exists is extremely corrupt and is tearing apart America from the inside, and it really saddens me.”

“I only hope that things will get better and more civil in America at some point, because I cannot take living like this every time that we have an election or important issue nationally.”

Elaine Dlouhy

Lincoln, Neb.

Then

Elaine Dlouhy calls herself a “crazy crafting woman,” adopted a dog named Spinks during the pandemic and has been married to the same man for 30 years. They put off an August anniversary trip to Belize or Costa Rica when the pandemic hit. “My husband and I both look like heart attacks waiting to happen (we like beer) but we really enjoy hiking and bike riding,” she said. Like a lot of people in Nebraska’s capital, in 2016 she cast a ballot for Donald Trump.

Trump’s oratory left something to be desired, she remembers thinking back then, but she reasoned his brashness was likely born from years as a businessman—experience she thought would translate to strong leadership and sound economic decisions. He might not have been her ideal candidate, but she assumed Trump would surround himself with “good people” like both George Bushes had done.

It didn’t take long for her to discover—to her horror—her assumptions were wrong. Within just a few months, Dlouhy lost count of the shocking things the president had said, and she noticed he had begun to alienate any advisers who disagreed with him. The president who had said on the campaign trail that the world was laughing at the United States was, she realized, embarrassing the nation on the world stage.

“Every time he opens his mouth, it is a cringeworthy moment for the world. I don’t know how to say that in a nice way,” Dlouhy told me last month. “It’s comical and it’s embarrassing,” she said of the current commander in chief. “I used to try to support him, to see something good in something he said. I can’t do that anymore.”

Now

“I have no doubts that I made the right choice. I feel very comfortable in my choice. I'm not surprised that Lincoln still voted for Trump, as did most of Nebraska. I can't wait until this is all over.

“I think people voted for a vice president as much as president and they weren’t ready for Kamala. Sad.”

Jacob Rissler

Chadron, Neb.

Then

In Chadron, 27-year-old Jacob Rissler isn’t hearing other Republicans talk about what he sees as clear concerns conservatives should have with Trump. The close-knit community and college town of about 6,000 is largely agricultural—a place where ranching gets you by, but maybe doesn’t get you rich, meaning everyone works hard and makes the most with what they have.

Rissler said he is confused that his friends, family and neighbors aren’t more upset about the tariffs taking a scalpel to their farming livelihoods. Last year, the state’s farm bureau estimated Nebraska would lose about $1 billion from retaliatory tariffs from Trump’s trade wars. That’s not the fiscal responsibility that drew him to the party, he said.

“To me, this is not what traditional conservatism is,” Rissler said.

“This kind of sucks because sometimes I feel like I’m on an island,” Rissler said. “Most of the people I knew in the College Republicans are full-throated supporters of him [Trump] still, and I have just learned ‘I’m not going to talk to you about it.’”

Now

“I was ecstatic that at least one Nebraska district went Biden. Even though it wasn’t my district and my vote really didn’t sway anything, it still made me happy. I’m happy a few GOP people have spoken out against the false claims of fraud, but non-retiring ones are adding the stupid disclaimer about counting “legit” ballots. Makes me mad. They are all smart enough to know how the system works.

“I was hoping that Trump would lose and have to go without a doubt because of a landslide, but I always knew in the back of my mind that it could be close and Trump would start pulling nonsense out of thin air. I’m really honestly worried for our country at the amount of people who are listening to his harmful rhetoric. Any rational people understand mail ballots would break for Biden since Trump spent months telling supporters mail ballots were fraud. I truly am worried for the future with this outcome.”

Pat Borchers

Omaha, Neb.

Then

Pat Borchers, 58, a law professor at Creighton University in Omaha, is one of those newly registered Democrats.

Borchers heartily supports Biden, he said, but “up until 2016 was playing for the other team.” He ran an unsuccessful campaign for state Legislature as a Republican in 2016 but held his nose and voted for Hillary Clinton. He had stayed a registered Republican—hoping the Republican Party would “rediscover its soul”—until this May.

“I’m not on the fence at all,” Borchers said. “It’s been kind of a long journey, but Trump’s handling of the pandemic has just been worse than awful and the racist dog whistles—they’re like racist bullhorns—just disgust me so much.”

Now

“I’m on edge because I don’t expect Trump to conform to any basic norms for transfer of power.”

Robert Joseph

Valentine, Neb.

Then

Joseph, 42, doesn’t like the way Trump has emboldened his community to talk divisively about minority groups—especially on Facebook. To him it seems counterintuitive because the town has a tangled but symbiotic relationship with the Rosebud Indian Reservation, roughly 10 miles north of town and just over the South Dakota border.

“There’s been race tension all the time—we know how to deal with it,” Joseph said. “But the way that people are willing to speak out against African Americans is shocking to me, when many of them, maybe, haven’t even met an African American person for a while.”

Now

“[The election went] exactly like the Lincoln Project projected as far as administration response: false claims and silent GOP senators. Probably couldn’t have been worse, in my opinion.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/

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