Dem
47
GOP
53
Reporter Daniel Allott traveled around Trump Country to see what motivated voters there. He discovered some interesting things.
One thing that has puzzled many political analysts about the 2024 election is why Trump did so well among young Black men—especially when the Democrats fielded a Black candidate. One of Allott's discoveries—and one we haven't seen much elsewhere—is that young Black men didn't think of Harris as the sitting vice president. They thought of her as the California AG who put a lot of young Black men in prison and was proud of it. She wanted to be seen as a law-and-order AG. It worked. Young Black men got the message. They didn't vote for Trump; they voted against Harris, to punish her. They aren't Republicans and might well have voted for Biden had he remained the candidate.
Others were just weary of politics and wanted a change. During the campaign, when Harris was asked if there was anything she would have done differently than Biden, she couldn't think of anything. That doesn't smell like change. People wanted change and Trump was the change candidate. The events of the past 2 weeks have indeed shown that Trump was the change candidate. Maybe not the change they were looking for, but change nevertheless.
Still another point is that people have very short memories. The Dobbs decision came down on June 24, 2022. Many people have already forgotten it. Trump barely mentioned abortion during the campaign and even said he would veto a nationwide abortion bill if Congress passed one. The result is that Harris built her campaign around abortion and swing voters didn't care.
One person said there was a "softening" toward Trump. He wasn't seen as so bad, really. Some people said we survived Trump v1.0 just fine, so why would Trump v2.0 be any different? Little did they know.
As an experiment, Allott put on a red MAGA hat and roamed around the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. He got a few unpleasant stares and one person yelled "sh**" but even there, in the People's Republic of Madison, everyone just seemed worn out. This could be the "softening" that someone mentioned. People can't keep up being outraged all the time—unless they watch Fox every evening.
One interesting visit was Howard County, IA. It was the only county in America to vote for Obama by over 20 points in 2012 and then for Trump by over 20 points in 2016. In 2024, Trump carried the county by 32 points. It is 99% white and very rural. Many people were bummed out because Obama didn't live up to his promises. That seems to be a burden Democrats have. When a Democrat promises something and doesn't do it, for example because Republicans control at least one chamber of Congress, the Democrat gets blamed for failing to keep his promise. When the same thing happens to Trump, people forgive him and say "At least he tried." Democrats don't get credit for trying. Think of Joe Biden not forgiving student loans, despite trying very hard and being shot down by the Supreme Court. (V)