For Some Reluctant Trump Voters, Coronavirus Was The Last Straw

[babylonsister]

For Some Reluctant Trump Voters, Coronavirus Was The Last Straw
By Charlotte Alter and Tessa Berenson
April 30, 2020 3:54 PM EDT


Heidi and Dennis Hodges were proud to vote for President Donald Trump in 2016. “I liked his tough stance. I liked that he wasn’t a politician,” says Dennis, who runs a window-tinting company in Erie, Penn. “I supported him for three and a half years,” says Heidi, who manages the office of an auto service shop.

Then came the coronavirus crisis. For Dennis, the last straw was seeing Trump downplay the seriousness of COVID-19, even as troubling reports about the disease emerged from China. “Before the pandemic, Trump would have gotten my vote again,” he says. “Business was booming, the economy was good, it looked like everything was turned around.”

For Heidi, the stakes were personal: In March, her uncle had to visit the ER three times before he could get tested for COVID-19, she says. By the time he was finally admitted to the hospital on March 23, he was so sick he had to be put in a medically induced coma. He was on a ventilator for 28 days before his condition improved, she says. Trump “is sitting there touting that nobody has an issue with getting a test,” says Heidi. “And that’s not true.”

One of the defining questions of the 2020 election is how many Trump voters feel in November like Heidi and Dennis Hodges do now. Over the past four years, Trump has developed a Teflon mystique: no matter what he says or does, nothing seems to stick to him. Predicting that the latest outrage will finally sever his bond with supporters has been a mug’s game. And even as the coronavirus crisis escalated in March and April, there have been few signs that this is changing: 93% of self-described Republicans said during the first half of April that they approved of Trump’s performance, according to Gallup—up two points from a month prior.

Yet there is also little question that the pandemic has transformed the election. Two months ago, Trump was an incumbent president riding a strong economy and a massive cash advantage; today, he looks like an underdog in November. The RealClearPolitics polling average has former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, leading Trump 48.3% to 42% nationally. Trump’s prospects aren’t any brighter right now when broken down by states that were key to his 2016 victory. According to Real Clear Politics polling averages, Biden leads Trump by 6.7 points in Pennsylvania, 5.5 in Michigan, and 2.7 points in Wisconsin. Biden is also leading Trump narrowly in Florida and Arizona.

“If you look at all the swing states, virtually all of them, he’s underwater,” says Douglas Schoen, a former pollster for President Bill Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “This election is a referendum on Trump,” Schoen continues. “And so far from what we see over the last month, month and a half, he’s losing that referendum.”

more...

https://time.com/5829244/trump-voters-coronavirus-2020/

[uponit7771]

1. I know 3 Trumpers who are beating themselves up on this big time, they know he did the country wrong

[liberalmuse]

2. I have a coworker who severely regrets voting for Trump.

She wasn't all that informed back then. She is now.

[Squinch]

3. Heidi and Dennis are dumb as mud fences. But at least now they are the

proverbial stopped clock.

[qazplm135]

4. I ignored all the crap Trump did to other people

because my own life was great, but now, it affects me personally, so now I have doubts.

GTFO with that stuff lady. I mean, sure, I'm glad you might not vote for Trump (spoiler alert: I don't believe you), but this is once again being fine with everyone else being crapped on until you start feeling the pain.

[PCIntern]

7. Exactly.

[empedocles]

5. trump 'Teflon mystique'? [Easy to get sick of that nonsense].

The no mystique, no charisma, Herbert Hoover, 4 very bad years, with massive 25% circa unemployment, DJIA down some 90% in 1932, - got 40% of the Presidential vote in the 1932 election.

Voters are slow to catch on it seems.

[Stallion]

6. Just Like the Georgia Poll This Morning where Republicans were +7 In Rebuilding the Economy...

....after 3 straight Republican recessions and/or depressions and at least 16 straight years of Democratic job growth, stock market gains and lowered deficits

Democrats need to broaden the argument that Republicanism has been a disaster for this Country for decades

We are the only grown-ups in the room and have a much stronger business performance for generations

[crickets]

8. +1