15 Jul Election 2020 | How Do Swing Voters Feel About Current Democratic Candidates?
Engagious, in partnership with Focus Pointe Global, has traveled to Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, and Pennsylvania to find out what swing voters are thinking. This month we traveled to Warren—Michigan’s third largest city (after Detroit and Grand Rapids) and Detroit’s largest suburb.
In Warren we met July 8 with twelve swing voters—nine who voted for Obama in 2012, and Trump in 2016; and three who voted for Romney in 2012, and Clinton in 2016.
We talked about the weather, and their families (we’re polite, after all). We asked them what they’re looking for in a leader; what issues are important to them; what they thought of President Trump and the Democrats in the hunt for his job. We showed them clips of the recent Democratic debates and asked them to rate with dials how much they liked what was said.
They’re concerned about immigration, health care prices, and retirement. They think the economy is growing, but they wouldn’t describe it as booming. We heard, again, that issues that are important to the 24-hour news stations (like impeachment) aren’t really important to them.
It’s all interesting—read the whole report here—and we’re grateful, as always, to the respondents for letting us take a look under the hood.
Some highlights:
On immigration: They want to take care of struggling Americans first. “I don’t want to be a jerk,” said one female Obama-Trump voter. “I feel terrible for those people, but there are people here in this country that are struggling to survive.”
On Trump: They said they don’t like it. But they like that he speaks his mind, and that he’s getting things done, or trying to. So they’re sticking with him. All nine Trump voters, and one Clinton voter, said they would vote for Trump over Clinton if there were a presidential election between them tomorrow.
On Democratic presidential hopefuls: The current crop doesn’t excite them. They couldn’t identify pictures of most of them; nor could they say much about them. They’d like for Oprah to run.
On the Democratic debate: They didn’t watch much of it. Of the parts we showed them they said the candidates’ positions are too liberal, and would make these voters more likely to vote for Trump.
On large corporations: They don’t believe large corporations care about America’s best interests. As one respondent said, “I’ve been in a lot of meetings where we decide where we put the plants—Korea, China, places like that—and America’s best interest was [never considered].”
On tariffs: They support them, especially on cars and car parts made in other countries. They want to protect American jobs and American wealth.
On climate change: It’s not a top five issue for a little more than half of them (“many other issues matter more to me”), but it wouldn’t cause them to vote against (or for) someone who is vocal about addressing it.
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