With President Biden and former President Donald Trump facing off in Atlanta tomorrow, The Post spoke to swing-state voters who were for or leaned Biden in 2020 and are considering Trump this election.
With President Biden and former President Donald Trump facing off in Atlanta tomorrow — the year’s highly anticipated first presidential debate — The Post spoke to swing-state voters who were for or leaned Biden in 2020 and are considering Trump this election.
What’s led them to abandon the Democrat? And what do they want to hear the Republican say — and not say — during the debate?IMMIGRATION
Recent college graduate Marc Hernandez, 25, said watching his border community be “torn apart so quickly” led him to be “hard Trump” after supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.
“I grew up in Douglas, Ariz., on the border. It was a quiet and peaceful small town before I left for college. After I came back, our only local grocery store closed, most community businesses closed and our town has a drug problem that didn’t exist before.
“I’m Mexican, and my family immigrated to the US. So in 2016, I believed that Trump was racist and hated Hispanics. Today I see that Trump was right, and I support building a wall and closing the border,” he said.
Douglas is located in the Tucson Sector, which has seen some of the highest numbers of migrant encounters along the southern border.
Madison, Wis., stay-at-home mom, homeschooler and Turning Point ballot chaser Kim Smith, 45, didn’t vote in 2016 because she was “so angry the Democrats handed her Hillary Clinton.” She “slowly made the transition from Democrat” to a Trump supporter.
Immigration is one of her main issues this election. “It is scary, the amount of people coming over the border. It’s superseded the population of Wisconsin, and it’s putting stress on our infrastructure,” Smith said.
“In Madison we are in this bubble,” she continued. “And we don’t see the consequences of our voting actions until it’s too late.
