50 Americans in 50 states reveal who they’re voting for and why
For a year, The Independent has featured unfiltered, unbiased conversations with voters from all walks of life in every state, plus DC and Puerto Rico. Here’s what they had to say
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President Donald Trump launched his re-election bid from the moment he first stepped foot in the White House in 2016, continuing his controversial mega-rallies and taking his show on the road immediately after inauguration and throughout the coronavirus pandemic — despite constant criticism and pushback from top health officials.
His presidency appeared to provoke a historic “blue wave” during the 2018 midterms, which saw the Democratic Party take back the House of Representatives. And in early 2020, scores of Democrats threw their hat in the ring for a chance to take on the president, from former Vice President Joe Biden — the now-Democratic nominee — to spiritual activist Marianne Williamson.
And, of course, Americans had their opinions through it all.
In order to hear from voters in all 50 states — as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico — and learn about their top concerns leading up to Election Day, I launched a weekly series titled Polarized: Voices From Across America, which profiled unique voters from all walks of life. Polarized explored the political division across America, the reasons for it and how it can be overcome. The goal of the project was to provide voters with a platform to share their opinions, have personal discussions about their views, and, hopefully, to make the country a little less polarized, one story at a time.
Here, all 52 subjects featured in Polarized tell us who they’re voting for in 2020’s presidential election and why.
Polarized was an original, 52-week series spanning the entire United States. Click here to listen to a podcast on Spotify featuring several voters from the series in key states discussing their top concerns just days before the election. To read more from this series, click here.
Alabama
Aahil Rajpari, an 18-year-old who describes himself as a “proud American Muslim,” spoke about the importance of social media and the Asian-American vote in the 2020 presidential elections.
Rajpari favors the Democratic Party’s view on net neutrality policies, and would like for there to be significant broadband expansion to provide equitable internet access across the country. But he also says he’s opposed to Common Core, a set of academic standards that some reports indicate has actually caused a decline in reading and math scores.
“I feel like it’s time we focus more on the next generation, because it is our future that we’re inheriting from our parents and people who are much older,” he said. “Everyone needs to come – Warren, Buttigieg, Yang, Sanders – they need to come talk to communities as a whole … while also not ignoring huge swaths of the community who decide elections … The Asian American population is skyrocketing.”
Rajpari is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Alaska
Christina Sinclair is involved in Alaska’s local Democratic politics and is the wife of a combat veteran with PTSD. She said Trump “forgot about the veterans in Alaska,” and supported Bernie Sanders’ calls to overhaul the Veterans Affairs agency.
“I voted for Hillary [Clinton] because I vote blue no matter who, but I was really mad that Bernie didn’t get it,” she said about the 2016 Democratic primaries. “I really feel as though he should have gotten it, and there’s a lot of people with that opinion that left the Democratic Party that I know of – at least here in Alaska. But I don’t feel like abandoning the party is gonna help anything.”
Sinclair is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Arizona
Ryan Rapier is a former Republican and third party voter who said he was shocked by the president’s handling of the coronavirus and felt he was being pushed to support anyone running against Donald Trump in 2020.
“The one difference in this go-around is [Trump] has become such a menace to this country in my opinion,” he said. “Now, with the pandemic and racial tensions we have going on – when you think it can’t get any worse, it does – I’ve decided that I will be voting for a Democrat for the first time in a presidential election.”
Rapier is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Arkansas
Adrienne Brietzke worked for Bill Clinton at one point and would now say she “hates him with a passion.” She rejects the Democratic establishment and doesn’t support how the party has responded to the Trump administration, though she essentially sees nowhere else to go as a voter.
“Biden being the nominee is going to prevent progressive turnout, because he’s basically been a placater for Republicans,” she said: “But Trump is just a moron … I’m trusting the scientists right now, and ignoring the president.”
Brietzke is voting for Joe Biden for president.
California
Tim Miller, a former communications director for Jeb Bush and “Never Trumper” who joined Republican Voters Against Trump as the group’s political director, has always been an outspoken opponent of the president. In our interview, he revealed why he was voting against Trump.
“I don’t really care about the top tax bracket rate anymore,” he said. “I care much more about protecting and maintaining our pluralistic society, making sure people of all races aren’t discriminated against, making sure we don’t have an unlawful, bigoted president — which I didn’t even realize was something that needed to be on the list for a while.”
Miller is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Colorado
Ann-Casey Hughes, a former supporter of Senator Elizabeth Warren, raised Joe Biden’s sexual assault allegations while considering who she would be voting for, but noted how the president has been accused by scores of women of innapropriate conduct.
“He’s not some monster who said ‘grab them by the p***y’. He’s not that guy,” she said about Biden. “Donald Trump is a monster with way more allegations, and we know at least the majority of them are true.”
Hughes is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Connecticut
Marie Garofalo, a once self-described “indignant” Donald Trump supporter, started to worry about the future of the world under the president and was convinced by her family to “see the light,” as she says.
While she typically didn’t think much about Washington affairs after election day, her family decided to keep Garofalo informed about Trump’s agenda once he assumed the Oval Office.
“I was very indignant when I voted for Donald Trump. I ate crow so bad on that,” she said with a laugh. “To be honest with you, when I voted for Trump – I’ve learned a lot since then about being an informed voter – I kind of just went with a gut feeling: I was sort of amused, but I also thought that he had something to say.”
Garofalo is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Delaware
Byron Hobson is a longtime Libertarian voter who said he believed Jo Jorgensen was shut out from the national political conversation surrounding the election at a crucial moment.
“At one point Joe Biden wanted to have a virtual debate and Trump wanted to have an in-person debate. Well, Jo Jorgensen will stand up and debate in person and virtually, and they still won’t debate her,” he said. “The media is not allowed to talk about her. Even four years ago the Libertarian party with Gary got way more media response than she is. Because she’s a serious threat, and a serious contender.”
Hobson is voting for Jo Jorgensen for president.
Florida
Rob Carpenter is a swing voter who has voted for every winning presidential candidate -- including Trump.
He described the president as a “bull in a china shop” and said criticized his foreign policy as “skittish” but ultimately said he didn’t see a candidate he could support during the Democratic primaries.
“Biden is burning out,” he said. “He just doesn’t have it this time ... I don’t see a strong candidate that will be able to counteract Trump. So, right now, I’m still with him.”
Carpenter is voting for Donald Trump for president.
Georgia
Kristen Beinhower, a 45-year-old school teacher, threw her support behind Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. A former Republican, Beinhower told me she never would have considered voting for a Democrat were it not for Trump’s presidency.
“I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me,” she said. “I used to be fairly staunchly Republican in my younger years, though I was always socially liberal … But come 2016, I think everything drastically changed. I don’t recognize the Republican Party it used to be. I feel like Donald Trump is the representation of the worst things in a lot of people. I believe he’s a narcissist, I think he’s completely xenophobic and only driven by what’s good for him and not the whole of the country.”
Beinhower is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Hawaii
Patrick Branco, a former US diplomat running for elected office, recalled meeting Joe Biden while working on US diplomacy issues back in the day, and spoke about why he is aligned with the former vice president in his race against Donald Trump.
“It was very ‘Joe Biden’ — he came up to me and said, ‘Son, when I grow up, I want to dress like you,’” he said. “I remember that. And I do think of Joe Biden very fondly and thank him for his service to our country.”
As he works to provide his community with the basic resources they desperately need, Branco has become even more aware of the need to elect leaders who can ensure their districts stay healthy and have the latest information available in challenging times. It’s part of the reason why he is running as the Democratic nominee to represent his district in the Hawaii State Legislature.
Branco is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Idaho
Heather Sinnes, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, worried whether Joe Biden would be able to inspire enough people to turn out and vote to unseat Donald Trump.
“I would have loved to see a woman in leadership, and I was initially very excited for Bernie Sanders,” she said. “But I trust Joe Biden, more than I could ever trust Donald Trump, to be a leader and actually lead us out of some of these terrible things – which will only get worse if Trump gets re-elected.”
Sinnes is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Illinois
Bryan Coleman said he was enthusiastically planning on supporting Joe Biden in his bid to unseat Donald Trump, arguing the former vice president could in fact have one of the most progressive presidencies in modern American history.
“I support him, I think getting Trump out is the priority, but I also think he has the relationships and the know-how to get things passed, which I think could surprise people,” he said. “A friend said to me Biden could be like Lyndon Johnson. Johnson got the Civil Rights Act passed because he knew so much – he had been one of the best Senate leaders the country ever had. He had all the connections, he had the know-how, he was an insider. I think Joe Biden can do a whole lot if he has the mind to.”
Coleman is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Indiana
Jeffrey Mantenaer, a veteran and Democratic voter, said he was 70 percent sure he was voting for Joe Biden but wanted to see him “get out of the basement,” noting how the president had been mocking him for not leaving his home as often as he had been traveling across the country during the pandemic.
“If the American people do it right, send in their ballots on time, even then, I just have a fear that Trump and his postmaster general is going to do something slick,” he said. “I think Trump and this guy have got something going on. It might get a little bit tough.”
Mantenaer is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Iowa
Kylie Spies, a Democrat who caucused for Elizabeth Warren, said her family in rural parts of the country was already beginning to suffer the impacts of climate change.
“Everyone has climate change in their platform, and that’s not a thing that was true 10 years ago, so that gives me hope,” she said. “My family in rural Iowa is seeing it happen before their eyes: the climate is so erratic, you can’t count on harvesting or planting at the time that you would before, the rainfall is unpredictable, we had huge floods last year, droughts the year before that.”
“People are talking about it,” she concluded. “Even lifelong Republicans. Something is happening here.”
Spies is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Kansas
Bryce Lewis, an independent voter who sat out of the election in 2016, revealed why he was now voting for Joe Biden.
“Out of every president I’ve had, I’ve never thought to myself that I’m just not even going to listen to what they say. A lot of times, even if you disagree you still got to hear it. But with him, I mean, he changes his story every week,“ he said.
He added: “I do have a little faith that Biden may not shoot at peaceful protesters to have a photo op … The lesser of two evils, maybe. But if one is actually, really evil, you kind of have a no-brainer.”
Lewis is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Kentucky
Gloria Jean Matzig, an absentee voter who has cast votes from Germany in nine previous elections, revealed her concerns about Donald Trump’s attacks on the United States Post Service.
“It has never before in the entire history of the USA been more important than it is now for Americans to be allowed to vote by mailing in their ballots to their local boards of election,” she said. “Even in times of the two world wars, people were always able to safely send in their votes – from our overseas military personnel, and American expats everywhere, for instance.”
Matzig is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Louisiana
Holly Rockelle-Celerier, a 67-year-old Democratic voter lives in New Orleans, faced massive medical debt. She supported Bernie Sanders, but told me she didn’t think he would have been able to pull enough support from independents and former Republicans, while she had been considering Joe Biden during the primaries.
“I was looking at $35,000,” she says. “I wriggled and wiggled, and wheeled and dealt, and threatened and pleaded to get it way down. At this point, I’ve still got about $1,000 left to pay.”
Rockelle-Celerier is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Maine
Chris P, a radio host who considers himself part of Donald Trump’s “silent majority,” spoke about cancel culture, what it’s like avoiding politics as a supporter of the president and why he agrees with the president’s agenda since he was elected in 2016.
“I know he’s a very bombastic individual, and he’s narcissistic, and there are things about him that I definitely do not like, but his policies were a pleasant surprise to me,” he said. “We’re silent about our attitudes, but we’ll make up a majority of the vote.”
Chris P is voting for Donald Trump for president.
Maryland
Kristin Treado was a big fan of Elizabeth Warren during the 2020 primaries, citing the Massachusetts senator’s steady rollout of policy proposals to confront the nation’s crises. A longtime Democratic voter, Treado noted how she has previously voted for Republicans in her district.
“I used to think I could count on checking out of politics for a day or two, and the world would go on as normal,” she said. “I didn’t exactly like George W Bush, and we even got into wars with him, but I wasn’t necessarily concerned every waking moment that he was going to melt the country or nuke North Korea.”
Treado is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Massachusetts
Samuel Harold is a juvenile public defender who works in the youth advocacy division and considers himself a progressive, though he also says politicians like Ed Markey and Joe Biden could prove to be valuable allies to a liberal movement despite their centrist records.
“With Biden, I shared a lot of people’s concerns on the left about not only his middle-of-the-ground approach to pretty much everything political throughout his years and years in politics, but he also doesn’t have that charisma that I felt like a lot of other people have,” he said. “But I also have been seeing that he’s pretty malleable,” Harold says about Biden. “If we give him the right push, we might be able to get some things that we want. He wasn’t my first choice, he wasn’t my second choice, but at the end of the day, if we can get him on board with some of the things I think are important, I’m not going to fault him.”
Harold is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Michigan
Heather Ludlam, a shepherd who supported Pete Buttigieg during the primaries, predicted Michigan turning blue again in 2020 after Trump secured just 0.3 per cent more votes across the state than Clinton. She cited the impact of his trade wars on local farmers and industries as for the possible switch.
“I never intended to be following it this closely, but I am, because 2016 was devastating, just devastating,” she adds, of the 2020 election.
“Well, it was only 10,000 people,” she said about the 2016 vote, while laughing. “So I do see it going the other way. We just elected a Democratic governor, attorney general secretary of state, and I think that was in response to the current administration.”
Ludlam is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Minnesota
Bryce LeBrun said he felt the same way he did when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016: defeated.
“I struggle to find any real support for the guy other than opposing Trump, which is a bit concerning to me,” he said. “A lot of people know his name and associate him with [Barack] Obama, which is fine. But I just kind of feel the same way I did when Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders in 2016.”
LeBrun is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Mississippi
CeCelia Garrett, a 46-year-old Democratic voter who goes by CeCe, runs a crisis phone line with her husband and supported Bernie Sanders during the primaries. She and her husband moved to Mississippi to start an LGBTQIA-affirming ministry and crisis response team after 2011 saw a wave of suicides and violence.
“I have children who were given to me at birth and kids who were acquired along the way,” she said. “I honestly will vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination because I need safety for the people that I care for. In order to find safety for those folks, Trump needs to be voted out of office.”
Garrett is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Missouri
Jennifer Lewis-Kelly, a self-described die-hard Bernie Sanders supporter, told me Joe Biden “hasn't earned her vote yet” when we spoke in March. The 42-year-old Missouri Democrat said she grew up in a conservative family with an evangelical baptist background and is a former Republican, becoming engaged in politics at a young age when she first saw Bob Dole speak in St Louis.
“My parents are still huge Trump supporters and follow the QAnon like it’s a religion,” she said. “It’s really concerning, but, you know, to each their own.”
Lewis-Kelly has not indicated who she will vote for.
Montana
Mary Kirby describes herself as a “pro-life independent voter” who thinks Donald Trump isn’t a good Christian. When talking about Joe Biden, she revealed why she could put aside her strict views on women’s reproductive rights to cast a ballot against the president.
“I’m comforted by the fact that he’s personally pro-life – that’s what he said at one point in time, anyway, that because he’s Catholic, he’s personally pro-life but he’s not going to try and put his religious beliefs on other people,” she said. “I’d like to see it be more restricted, but at the moment it’s the law of the land. It’s like a lot of other things I believe that aren’t necessarily illegal.”
Kirby is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Nebraska
Margery Coffey has dedicated her life to researching and advocating for Native American tribes and communities. She explained how Donald Trump and Joe Biden were both “terrible for Indian country” in her opinion.
“I became radicalized in my twenties and realized I had been lied to by my school, the government, the newspapers, because they were all trying to push the dominant rich folks’ line,” she said. “I wanted to know the truth, and I figured the Indians knew the truth. As I came back to Nebraska, the logical thing was to study the Omaha … It has been a learning experience that has really changed me.”
Coffey is not voting for Donald Trump or Joe Biden for president.
Nevada
Salomée Levy, an 18-year-old first-time voter who supported Elizabeth Warren before calling on her to drop out and endorse Bernie Sanders, said she will be voting for immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and people of color in this election.
While her top candidate may not have been chosen, this teen said she sees the importance in voting for someone who stands for the values she supports, while calling on others her age to do the same.
“I have hope,” she said. “I’m seeing young people – especially within my own community – becoming more involved. They’re coming out and voting for the more progressive candidates. There’s a lot of hope that we’ll one day have more women and minorities in politics, get equal pay, have equal rights … so yeah, I really have a lot of hope.”
Levy is voting for Joe Biden for president.
New Hampshire
Adam W, a gamer and rising streaming personality, revealed why some in the online gaming community reject the federal government and status quo politicians.
“I think content creators as a whole are more progressive,” he said. “We're supported by our fans, and want to support them back. I don’t care who they may be, I support their rights to be themselves safely. Our world changes slower than electronics do, and I think that’s simply illogical.”
Adam W is voting for Jo Jorgensen for president.
New Jersey
Juhi Desai was evacuated from her work with the Peace Corps in Africa due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a millennial, she said she didn’t feel inspired by Joe Biden and his message, but felt that he would be a better president than Donald Trump.
“He’s not really my favorite candidate,” she said. “I’m 25, and I kind of fall in line with a lot of voters my age who feel he’s outdated, and he has kind of a murky record.”
Desai is voting for Joe Biden for president.
New Mexico
James Callahan voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but spoke about how he was open to hearing more from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
“There was a short period of time when the Republicans had the congress, the Senate and the presidency, and they failed to get anything done – particularly on immigration and the national debt,” he said. “I’m going through a struggle with family and friends over this very issue: I’m a philosophical conservative, libertarian is probably the best way to describe it. But for the first time in my life I started looking at Bernie Sanders. I get he has his issues too, but he’s been singing the same song for years, he’s not nearly as corrupt and clearly we have a corrupt system. And you’re talking to a lifelong Republican.”
Callahan is voting for Donald Trump for president.
New York
Caroline Gomez, a Puerto Rican activist and former Bernie Sanders supporter who has thrown her support behind Joe Biden, revealed how she was grappling with her decision to cast a ballot for the former vice president after he secured the Democrat Party’s presidential nomination.
“My priorities as a voter have always emanated from a place of empathy,” she said. “I believe in the protection of the working class, a criminal system that is reinvented with rehabilitation at the forefront of its policies and a pathway to citizenship for those that risk their lives and place in the world for the opportunity of living a life with dignity in this country.”
“The mishandling of this current crisis by the Trump administration has already cost us thousands of lives and the numbers will continue rising," she added. "So we have to vote for the Democratic nominee and continue to put pressure on them so that they can move forward with an agenda that works for the people and not the corporate powers that have controlled our democracy for far too long.”
Gomez is voting for Joe Biden for president.
North Carolina
Jay Copan was perfectly placed to vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 elections as a fiscal conservative, though he said the president failed to control his more impulsive and erratic behavior in office.
“There are a tremendous number of North Carolinians who regret having voted for Trump in 2016,” he said. “You see many of these people involved with Lincoln Project, and Republican Voters Against Trump. He didn’t win North Carolina by that much, and Obama won North Carolina. We are clearly a purple state.”
Copan is voting for Joe Biden for president.
North Dakota
Peter Larson went viral when his daughters posted aerial photos of his soybean fields after he carved a message of support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
“I’m sitting out there for hours, and I got to thinking, ‘you know, I could make a nice sign out here I betcha,’” he said.
He added: “I had taken a little piece of note paper — I didn’t take a Biden and Harris sign, just found the logo online — and made a little sketch. When I finished doing my business up there, I made these little signs.”
Larson is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Ohio
Linda Hansen, a Bernie Sanders fundraiser, hoped the Vermont senator could take back Ohio from Republicans and revealed how she went into debt after surviving a heart attack. Hansen called on voters to support the senator’s universal health care plan.
“I had insurance ... I got my bill, and I was only in the hospital for two days, went in Wednesday evening and discharged Friday, my bill was $34,000. My insurance paid $7,000 of that, I was stuck with the rest,” she said. “Medicare-for-All under Bernie’s proposal means no premiums coming out of your paychecks, no deductibles that you have to meet, no copays.”
Hansen did not indicate who she will be voting for.
Oklahoma
Nancy Shively, an at-risk 63-year-old school teacher, was fearing returning to work and having to choose whether or not to come back to classrooms when we spoke in the midst of the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak.
“I voted for Trump very reluctantly because I just couldn’t vote for Hillary, so I held my nose and voted for Trump,” she explained. “I wasn’t that engaged politically, I hardly ever watched the news – until the pandemic hit. Then [Trump] started doing the pandemic press conferences. That’s when I got to see who he was on full display.”
Shively is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Oregon
Dr Karen Kelsky shared her love for mail-in voting while encouraging other Americans to cast their ballots early in the election, warning what she feared could happen if Donald Trump were to secure another four years in office.
“For Democrats, we have to not just win — we have to win in a landslide of epic proportions, to remove enough questions about the election so Trump’s side and QAnon can’t throw us into a coup, a literal right-wing coup,” she said.
She added: “I would not call what we have even now a free and fair election because of gerrymandering, voter suppression, Trump’s attacks on the post office and attacks from Russia … but it will get worse if we don’t win.”
Dr Kelsky is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Pennsylvania
Krish Mohan, an Indian-American immigrant and comic who recently became a citizen and was interested in voting for either Tulsi Gabbard or Bernie Sanders. He rejects the Trump presidency, but does not support Joe Biden for president and declined to reveal to The Independent who he plans to support come November.
“I think the 2016 presidential election really didn’t have good candidates, so I can’t blame anyone for the choices that they made,” he said. “But I will listen to why they made those choices so I can get an understanding of what’s going on, and a more accurate picture of where we are as a country.”
Mohan is not disclosing who he will vote for but has said it will not be Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
Rhode Island
Lauren Niedel, a progressive voter, made a pact with her mother to vote for Joe Biden in the general election if her mom would vote for Bernie Sanders in the primaries.
“It’s not a hard decision,” she said. “But mostly his vision is ‘not Trump’ … Does he have a shot? I think he has a shot. But I am very, very concerned about voter disenfranchisement, about electoral fraud, about voter intimidation.”
Niedel is voting for Joe Biden for president.
South Carolina
Gavin Kidder said he’s not voting for Joe Biden or Donald Trump because both are two sides of the same coin in his opinion. He discussed why he did not think the former vice president would make significant changes if elected.
“I consider him to be part of the establishment, a part of that top 1 percent,” he said. “I feel like if he was elected, he’d put in a couple of measures to make it seem like he was trying to implement change in our country, but not go all the way to ensure positive change was actually happening.”
Kidder is not voting for Donald Trump or Joe Biden for president.
South Dakota
Natalie LaFrance-Slack admits she’s not like most South Dakotans, while revealing she had a “political evolution” after coming from a “single issue voting family” over abortion and women’s reproductive rights.
“One of the things that was encouraging to me as I watched the Democratic convention was this message of unity and hope, and that’s certainly not something I’ve felt in 2020,” she said. “Hearing from a convention with past and current leaders of integrity, there was that message of hope and resilience, of coming together. While it wasn’t so much a checklist of how things were going to change, it was a message of hope that I think we needed.”
LaFrance-Slack is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Tennessee
Dennis Berry, a local alderman and Trump voter, can’t stand the president’s bullying. When it comes to the president’s conservative agenda, his record on the courts and other top concerns for this Tennessee voter, Trump checks off all the boxes.
It’s his tweeting and bullying that upsets Berry, who said he works to root out cyberbullying among the youth in his community.
“I may get in trouble with some of my Republican counterparts,” he said with a laugh. “I believe [Trump] uses the bully pulpit, and I don’t agree with the name-calling, the way he speaks to people and treats people in general, I just don’t agree with that — but as far as policy, most of the policies I agree with.”
Berry is voting for Donald Trump for president.
Texas
Jeffrey Michael Clemmons is a 19-year-old who told me he was attracted to Trump’s 2016 campaign, but has since had a change of heart. He supported Andrew Yang during the 2020 Democratic primaries, explaining his shift away from the Republican Party as a response to its handling of the president’s impeachment trials.
“Several months ago I would not have said that I vote more in line with the Democrats,” he said. “But the Republicans are spineless. You look at the impeachment saga and the only thing they have been able to critique [Trump] on is the situation in Turkey.”
Clemmons is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Utah
Mary Burkett, a Republican Trump supporter, was so energized by the president’s 2016 election - and equally frustrated with what she said was a lack of accountability surrounding the nation’s debt - that she decided to run for Congress. A lifelong Utah conservative, Burkett told me she hates Mitt Romney, and loves Donald Trump - but wants him to fix the deficit.
“Here’s what America did, and I have so many people agree with me,” she said. “Donald Trump is a junkyard dog, and we’re okay with that. We’ve tried electing people who are signified and have decorum, they care about all of the formalities and protocol, they didn’t do — with the exception of Reagan — very much what they said they were going to do.”
Burkett is voting for Donald Trump for president.
Vermont
Sajjad Attaf said he supported Joe Biden for bringing attention to the plight of the Uighur Muslims being detained in China, while condemning Donald Trump’s response to Beijing, as well as his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I appreciate the leaders who can say the truth and [are] willing to say it no matter the consequences,” he said. “Whether they lose a lot of support, [or] lose an election over it.”
Attaf is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Virginia
Don Unger, a 64-year-old volunteer medic, is on the frontlines of the gun control crisis and opioid epidemic in America. He’s seen increasingly deadly gunshot wounds over the years due to the weaponization of America and worsening drug crisis.
Unger called for a presidential candidate to have sound policies on the nation’s gun control problem when we spoke.
“I would say the first year, year and a half of the Trump administration wasn’t my favourite, but the last year the train has gone off the rails,” he said. “Nobody, young or old, can ever remember anything like what we’ve experienced the last year. The adults have left the building. Anybody who had any kind of sway over the Twitter controls or impulse controls is no longer there, which is why we’re seeing what we’re seeing. I don’t anticipate it getting better any time soon.”
Unger is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Washington
Maggie Gates said Bernie Sanders’ leadership was needed in the pandemic more than ever before, and said she did not want to once again “begrudgingly” vote for the Democratic Party’s nominee as she did when she cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton in 2016. When we initially spoke, Gates said she would not be voting for Biden. But then she had a change of heart, saying “many problems have escalated” since our last conversation. “I still do not like Biden or believe he represents me or the majority of Americans, but I am reluctantly voting for Biden because I do think he will probably do a slightly better job than Trump.”
“Myself and many other young people are feeling really disillusioned with the Democratic party as a whole,” she said. “They don’t represent the interests of regular working people, they’re not taking the actions necessary to address climate change … I definitely don’t consider myself a Democrat.”
Gates is for Joe Biden for president.
Washington D.C.
Deanna Joy Williams, a 48-year-old Democratic PR professional, described her ballot as a “wasted vote” due to the nation’s capital lacking representation in Congress. She liked several of the candidates who ran for the party’s nomination in 2020, but said she wasn’t incredibly inspired by any of them. Still, she planned to vote for whoever became the eventual nominee.
“With the incumbent, he doesn’t fight or attack on the real issues, so basically it’s name-calling, and we’re 13-year-olds in eighth grade again, so I will completely disregard him about his comments on any of the candidates,” she said. “It’s very immature, very infantile, it’s like: shut up already!”
Williams is voting for Joe Biden for president.
West Virginia
Alison W Martin, an independent voter who calls herself “a true mountaineer,” rejects the president for his failed promises to her beloved homestate.
“There is no more beautiful place to live anywhere, and I’ve lived many different places. The people are good, hardworking people who love their God and their country,” she said. “Trump’s promises to West Virginia voters about coal have not been fulfilled. West Virginia voters are not better off and America has not been made great again for them.”
Martin is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Wisconsin
Emily Thurmann is a former waitress who was forced to stop working during the pandemic and was worried as the state defiantly planned to go forward with in-person voting on a crucial primary election day. She had similar fears for Election Day as well.
“There’s just no way they are going to be able to get an accurate representation of our vote,” she said.
Thurmann is voting for Joe Biden for president.
Wyoming
Terry Phelps was a former reluctant Donald Trump voter in 2016 who said he’s now proudly supporting the president in 2020.
“I think the liberals have just started going so far, I would have a hard time as a Democrat to go that far to the left,” he said. “Joe used to be pretty good. But his good days are behind him.”
Phelps is voting for Donald Trump for president.
Puerto Rico
Nillsa Gomez Lassale, a Puerto Rican mother who supported Bernie Sanders and said Trump has been the 'worst nightmare imaginable' for the United States.
Though she cannot vote in the 2020 elections, Lassale called on voters to make a change in the upcoming vote and cast Trump out of office, citing his handling of the numerous hurricanes and earthquakes that have devastated Puerto Rico.
“Looking back, I’m not surprised at all by how Donald Trump is reacting to the earthquakes in Puerto Rico,” she said. “What can we expect from somebody that treats everyone like that – men, women, immigrants, the press … I’m not surprised by anything he does now.”
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