Recent polls of swing state voters showed that former President Donald Trump had an advantage over President Biden in six critical battleground states where he was nearly defeated four years ago.
Some of the voters who supported Biden in 2020 are now expressing why they want Trump to be re-elected in 2024.
Frederick Westbrook, a retired Las Vegas hotel worker, told The New York Times in an interview that voting for Biden to remove Trump from office was “the biggest mistake of my life.”
“As a black man in America, I felt he was doing unjust things,” Westbrook stated about Trump. “He’s got a big mouth. He’s not a nice person.” While his opinion of Trump has not altered in the last four years, Westbrook told the Times that the expense of living has risen too much under Biden’s watch.
“Everything is just about the economy,” explained Westbrook, who now drives for Lyft to supplement his fixed retirement income. “I don’t really trust Donald Trump at all. I just think housing, food, my car, my insurance, every single piece of living has gone up.”
Others think that Americans are no better off now than they were four years ago, with 14% of survey respondents indicating they will not vote for Biden again, according to polls released Monday by The New York Times, Siena College, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELReactions to the economy and the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza, together with a drop in support for Biden among younger, black, and Hispanic voters, were reported in poll findings and follow-up interviews that were published in the Times on Friday that “threaten to unravel the president’s Democratic coalition.”
Jaredd Johnson, a 25-year-old voter from Atlanta who works in marketing, told the Times that he had thought Biden would return the country to pre-pandemic levels, but does not believe he has. Despite his worries about Trump, he stated that he would vote for the expected Republican nominee in November.
While Jonson recognizes the necessity of supporting Ukraine and Israel, sending relief to Gaza, and assisting immigrants, conversations with his friends and family “are suddenly less about what’s happening overseas and more about how we are struggling here, too.”
Christopher Sheffield, 61, a veteran counselor in Thomasville, Georgia, told the Times that his fears about Trump’s racial policies pale in comparison to international challenges that could spark another world war.
“I’m an African American. Of course I worry about racism,” he told the paper. “But, guess what?,” he said. “I’ve been dealing with that my whole life.”
Biden is “a good guy,” according to Sheffield. “But when I look at him, he looks weak. With North Korea, Putin, and all those boys ready to act, I think they will be a little bit more reluctant to challenge Trump than they would with Biden.” He stated that he would vote for Trump in November.
According to Fox News political expert Gianno Caldwell, it’s not surprising that black voters like Westbrook and Sheffield are shifting their support away from Biden and toward Trump.
“The pundits and analysts view the black voters supporting Trump as an anomaly, and they are wrong,” Caldwell stated. “Many black voters were browbeaten into voting for Biden in 2020 by the media and celebrity cultural figures like Charlemagne the God with promises and predictions of a presidency that would serve the black community well, and black folks now realize they have been bamboozled by the left and media.”
“Considering their economic conditions under the Biden administration are now far worse than under Trump, many feel they have no choice but to support the man who actually got the job done and made many feel more financially secure,” he stated.
Other voters told the Times that persistent inflation, which came in at 3.4% in April, down from 9% in 2022 but still well above the Federal Reserve’s target 2% rate, illegal immigration, and Biden’s decision to withhold an arms shipment to Israel demonstrate the need for significant change in America.
“All of our core values are gone, gone, and I’m just not pleased at all,” said Amelia Earwood, a 47-year-old safety trainer with the USPS in Georgia.
She told the Times that she thinks Trump is “a horrible human being,” but “I’m voting on his policies, and I think he could straighten this country out, while Biden made a ginormous mess out of it.”
#trumpvsbiden2024 #swingstatepolls #economicconcerns
