What I learned from 15 months of talking to America’s top voters

Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
CNN
—

Shannon Elliott and Kristin Caparra live in the same suburban Philadelphia county. Both are a mixture of anxiety and excitement on this election day. Both see their country at a defining crossroads.

The common ground ends there.

“I’m worried about a Trump presidency,” said Elliott, a mother of two teenagers and owner of a gift shop in Swarthmore. “I don’t want to go back there.”

Caparra worries, too.

“When I think about Kamala Harris, I think what annoys me the most is her duality, where she says her values ​​haven’t changed,” said Caparra, a civil engineer from Drexel Hill who also teaches figure skating . “It’s almost like a signal to the far left that I’m still a progressive. And a progressive, in my mind, is a name for, you know, the Democratic Socialist Party. So she plays on the leftmost wing.”

Swarthmore and Drexel Hill are just six miles apart in Delaware County. Yet Elliott and Caparra are on opposite sides of America’s cavernous political divide. Former President Donald Trump is his lightning rod.

Elliott: “I see how they treat people and bully people, and those are things I tell my teenage kids not to do. Why would I want to see my president do that.”

Caparra: “I wish they could, frankly, look past some of Trump’s bad behavior and look at the larger meaning of what he’s trying to say. … He loves this country and my version of this country a little bit more than the other side, to be honest.”

Elliott and Caparra are two of nearly 90 voters I’ve spent time with over the past 15 months as I’ve visited 10 states to Project all over the map. The aim was to follow the 2024 campaign through the eyes and experiences of voters who live in key battleground states or are part of critical voting blocs. Or both.

We have learned so much and owe so much to the Americans who have invited us into their homes, workplaces and communities. What I learned most is that voters are way ahead of politicians.

From our first trip to our last, they brought to life the issues that would most animate the campaign. The cost of living. Border Security and Immigration. Abortion rights and broader questions about reproductive rights and respect for women. Anxiety about technology, globalization and the coarsening of our political debate.

Concerns about President Joe Biden’s age and stamina came up frequently and long before those conversations became commonplace in Washington. We were quickly and then constantly reminded that Trump’s support is more diverse and complicated than most of his critics realize.

If the former president wins, Caparra’s “my version of this country” comment could be instructive.

Trump’s fiercest supporters see him as their voice and echo his often harsh language on immigrants, as well as his lies about stolen and rigged elections and prosecutions against him.

They hold their noses and vote for Trump

But I’ve also met many Trump critics who will ultimately be Trump voters because they say Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats are a bigger threat than Trump’s toxic behavior.

Shanen Ebersole fits in there.

She is a southwest Iowa cattle rancher who supported former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the Iowa caucuses. She initially hoped Republicans would move on from Trump, and the behavior she said filled her liberal friends with fear.

But Trump clinched the nomination and will get Ebersole’s vote Tuesday because she sees Harris as a liberal activist.

“She’s willing to push her agendas on those of us who live totally different lives,” Ebersole said.

If Trump wins, voters like Joseph Knowles and Brian McMutuary will also be part of the math of his comeback.

Knowles is a black union auto worker from Michigan who has never voted Republican for president. But he believes the Biden-Harris clean energy policies are hurting the auto industry and that Democrats are too lenient with cultural elites and too soft on illegal immigration.

“I’ve voted the same way — with the Democrats — my whole life and nothing changes,” Knowles said. “So let’s try something different.”

McMutuary is also black and was also a lifelong Democrat until he voted for Trump in 2020. He disagrees with Trump on abortion and immigration, but considers him a leader stronger on the world stage and remembers that prices were lower when Trump was president.

“When I go to the grocery store, I get what I need, not so much what I want or what the kids want,” said McMutuary, who manages a fast-food restaurant in suburban Milwaukee. “We have a budget, you know. It’s tight.”

The terrain of the issue certainly favors the party exiting presidential power this year. Biden’s approval rating is down, and voters are pessimistic about the state of the economy and the direction of the country.

Tamara Varga, a Republican and one-time Libertarian who lives in Tucson, Arizona, said she believes Trump will increase his support among Latino voters this time around.

“The border and the economy,” she said. “It’s hard for people to put food on their tables and gas in their cars and it’s really affecting them. So I think now they’re thinking about their vote and how it’s going to affect their house.”

That the election looks so close says a lot about Trump and a brand that many voters see as toxic and too unpresidential.

“For me, I think it’s very important to remember that a president is a role model. It’s very important,” said Suresh Sharma, an independent from Georgia who voted for Trump in 2016 and then for Biden in 2020. “Can I tell my daughter and my son, ‘Hey, be like this person?’ … So, in my view, I think the Republican Party should have done a better job of electing someone who truly reflects American values.”

If Harris wins, women will be the bedrock of her coalition.

Black women are vital on all battlefields.

Atlanta entrepreneur Lakeysha Hallmon said the transition from Biden to Harris changed everything.

“There’s a sense of joy, a sense of excitement,” Hallmon said. “I think there has been a great outpouring of support. … It doesn’t feel so apocalyptic anymore. It actually feels hopeful when there is excitement.”

Shannon Elliott, a small business woman from suburban Philadelphia, is another piece of Harris math. If the vice president is losing ground among black and Latino men, greater support among suburban women is one way to compensate.

“You know we’re called ‘woke,'” Elliott said of the liberal Swarthmore. “What’s wrong with waking up? why are you sleeping Why don’t you wake up and see that people are going to get hurt and that his behavior is bringing to the surface negative behavior that could be dangerous, very dangerous.”

And if Harris wins, it will be because a decent portion of the Republicans who tried to prevent Trump from winning the nomination are prepared to vote for Harris in an effort to prevent him from winning the White House.

“My hope is that he loses and he just fades into the annals of history and we move on,” said Michael Pesce, a Haley-turned-Harris voter from Bucks County in suburban Philadelphia.

A Harris victory would also highlight the strength of the Democratic turnout operation.

“We did everything we could,” said Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, a progressive group on Milwaukee’s north side.

The 2020 experience looms large in the final days of this year’s campaign.

Many Trump voters echo their candidate saying the only way Harris can win is through fraud.

“I don’t think he has a chance to win in a fair fight,” said Chris Mudd, who runs a solar energy company in Cedar Falls, Iowa. “I just don’t think it’s possible. I really don’t. … Many like me would think the same thing: If Kamala Harris gets 81 million votes, something is really going to fall apart.”

Trump’s critics, on the other hand, are bracing for a repeat in 2020 if he loses again.

“He’ll never admit he’s missing something,” said Pesce, the Pennsylvania Haley supporter who is voting for Harris.

Attorney Joan London is another Haley voter turned Harris voter. Like Pesce, she is a Reagan Republican who believes Trump needs to lose again to create an opening to return the GOP to its conservative roots.

London believes the legal challenges could drag on for weeks. But she is ready for the campaign to end.

“I’m sick of political ads,” she said. “I wish they would go back to advertising for prescription drugs.”