RACINE, WI —
After all the Fox News interviews, the daily ranting ads, and everything else we’ve seen about these two candidates, it’s hard to believe that anyone would be undecided with less than three weeks until Election Day. It’s tough.
Still, they were surprisingly easy to spot, drinking lattes at Starbucks in strip malls, browsing magazines at Barnes & Noble, and eating eggs with their spouses at pancake restaurants. Others were leaning toward former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, but were still waiting for family meetings or the final stages of an online survey. Some were hoping to find some inspiration on their way to the precinct on Nov. 5.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris hugs a child after speaking during a campaign event at Washington Crossing Historical Park on Wednesday, October 16, 2024 in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania.
(Jacqueline Martin/Associated Press)
Last week, I spent three jam-packed days on and off the campaign trail with Harris in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, three industrial states that were critical to determining the presidency during the Trump administration. He spoke to voters along the way.
According to opinion polls, the race is extremely fierce in the three so-called “blue wall” states and four other battleground states, with about 5% of voters undecided. But a wide-ranging investigation has revealed that in handling an unprecedented election involving a candidate who sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat, he became the first president in history to be convicted of multiple indictments and felonies. It is difficult to grasp the complexities and contradictions that run through voters’ minds. .
Democrats are battling insomnia and changing their travel plans, while Republicans are friendly to reporters but suspicious of mainstream media and found to be overwhelmingly disillusioned.
“Neither is good,” said Amgad Fram, 61, an engineer from the Detroit suburb of Novi who was meeting for coffee with friends.
Amgad Frum of Detroit is still undecided in the final three weeks of the campaign, but is leaning 60-40 toward voting for Trump.
(Noah Bierman/Los Angeles Times)
He began the conversation by saying he would vote for Trump a third time to “stop the flood of people coming into this country.”
“You know, I’m a foreigner, so I shouldn’t say that,” said Frum, who immigrated from Jordan in 1981.
He said he was angry that Ecuadorian immigrants had recently broken into his brother’s home. As a warning, he pointed to the extremely high unemployment rate in Jordan, which has one of the world’s largest refugee populations.
But the conversation took a turn when he started talking about President Trump’s refusal to concede in the 2020 election and his increasingly authoritarian rhetoric.
“I don’t really like it,” Frum said. “The reason we moved to this country in the first place was to be free and get rid of the dictator.”
He put the current probability of supporting Trump at 60%, saying it depends on meeting his extended family.
The more committed Republicans I spoke to tended to ignore these aspects of President Trump’s rhetoric, accusing the media of double standards and prosecutors of promoting a political agenda. did.
Donald Trump will attend and speak at the Detroit Economic Club meeting in Detroit on Thursday.
(Julia Demarie Nikinson/Associated Press)
“You’re kind of dancing with the devil,” said Yves Francois, a 55-year-old salesman from Hartland, Michigan, who was having a fast-casual Middle Eastern lunch with friends in Oakland County, a suburb of Detroit. Said. . “Is there a problem with that? I don’t know,” he said of the criminal charges and conviction. “These are things that could have happened four, five, six, seven years ago, and for it to come to light now, the timing seems pretty crazy.”
He was interested in whether I would ask similar challenging questions of Harris supporters, but said he didn’t care and hoped we could all have a more civil dialogue. To him, Trump’s comments make people anxious and “take our eyes off the really obvious things” like the economy and our broken immigration system.
The Harris campaign spent the final weeks focusing on Trump’s threat to use the military against political opponents, his attempts to overturn the previous election that sparked the Jan. 6 riot, and the range of former officials. He begs voters to pay attention. National security staff warned that he was a threat to democracy. They are frustrated that when Americans look back on his presidency, they give him a much higher approval rating than when he was president.
“We barely survived,” said Olivia Troy, a former Trump administration national security official, praising the actions of those who opposed Trump, including her former boss, Vice President Mike Pence.
Mr. Troy spoke to me on a bright fall day at Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, a historical park along the Delaware River, after appearing on stage with Mr. Harris and other Republicans who had warned him about Mr. Trump.
Olivia Troye speaks at a Kamala Harris campaign event in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.
(Matt Slocum/Associated Press)
“When he starts talking about the use of military against people and law enforcement, I think we should take it very seriously, because those discussions are taking place in the White House, where he actually He was talking about the shooting of Americans,” Troy continued. “I was there for them. I witnessed it. No president should ever talk about shooting his own people.”
This scares committed Democrats like Claudia Seldon, a former rehabilitation nurse who was having a Wednesday coffee meeting with friends at a downtown Detroit cafe earlier in the day.
“I’m worried about what will happen if he wins and what will happen if he doesn’t win,” Cerdan said. Cerdon plans to leave for his winter home in Nevada early this year to avoid traveling during a period of potential election-related turmoil. .
Her friends Heather Hamilton and Joanne Nagrant were counting absentee ballots at the convention center in 2020 when a crowd tried to interrupt the process, a foreshadowing of Jan. 6. It was. After being quarantined, I’m nervous about going back to work this year.
Heather Hamilton, Claudia Seldon and Joanne Nagrant discuss their election plans over coffee in downtown Detroit.
(Noah Bierman/Los Angeles Times)
Many voters have seen Harris’ ads featuring Troy and others in battleground states. But some people just listen to the political noise. The flyers that arrive through the mailbox accumulate without being read. These voters manage to avoid the news that both candidates are traveling back and forth to their state almost every week.
“It’s more about them than it is about us,” said Daniel Santos, 36, a water company employee from Racine, Wisconsin. Santos voted for former Presidents Obama and Trump, but is undecided this time.
Daniel Santos, 36, who works for a water company in Racine, Wisconsin, has not decided to run for president.
(Noah Bierman/Los Angeles Times)
“I’m voting,” said Ana Gallo, a 36-year-old warehouse worker who was putting up Halloween decorations in front of her small house in Racine. “I have to sit down and think about it and read a little bit about what’s going on.”
A U.S. citizen of Mexican origin, she has been researching her husband’s legal status for more than a decade. That will weigh on her vote, as will the economy. She said Trump talks about a lot of “overreach,” but she didn’t think he governed that way while in office. She’s still learning about Harris.
Regina Gallacher, a 58-year-old physical therapist from Rochester Hills, Michigan, said she is “really scared” of President Trump, but is considering a third-party candidate because hearing about Harris doesn’t make her “warm and fuzzy.” He said he was looking for it. And he felt her replacement for President Biden on the ballot was “very slimy.”
Her husband, a Democrat, is voting for Trump for the first time, but Ms. Gallacher, who grows disgusted when Trump appears on TV, prefers to avoid heated conversations with her husband, which is unlikely, so she stays at home. So we’re not talking about that. To change his mind. If she had to choose between the two, she said, it would be Harris. But she lacks confidence.
If Trump wins, “we will get through this,” she said. “That won’t satisfy you.”
Regina Gallasher, 58, a physical therapist from Rochester Hills, Michigan, said she is looking for a third-party candidate.
(Noah Bierman/Los Angeles Times)
When the division looked its darkest, I ran into Jim Kusters, a retiree and Trump supporter, having breakfast in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. The friend was a Harris voter and former supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , won’t say who gets their vote now.
Kusters said the biggest problem is media bias. But that didn’t stop him from talking to reporters and joking with friends. It wasn’t personal to any of them. In between firing shots at the candidates, they told stories about their families.
“We go back and forth all the time,” Kusters said.
Like almost everyone I’ve met, they’re gearing up for the end of the campaign.
“Trump is clearly insane, and I don’t think Harris has a plan,” said Clayton Ewing, a 63-year-old retiree from Shelby Township, Michigan, who voted for Trump in previous elections. spoke.
Ewing said he may wait to make a final decision until he gets to the polls.
“I just hope whoever comes in does a good job,” he said. “Four years from now, we might even have new characters.”
