In Florida’s crucial county, a fierce battle
Clinton, Trump both struggle to rally their bases
Becky McCaughey steps into the humid Florida afternoon, a trash-bound box in one hand, a leash in the other.
The 53-year-old homemaker lives in a quietly unassuming west Tampa neighborhood, which conservative blogger Ed Morrissey calls “the most generic place” he’s ever been, for its suburban gated communities and national chain strip malls. In election lingo, McCaughey’s neighborhood is known as precinct 519.
McCaughey and her nearly 840,000 fellow Hillsborough County voters are critical in the Nov. 8 presidential election. The race for the White House will be decided by voters like McCaughey, who lives in a county that has picked the winner in 19 of the past 20 presidential elections, says Steve Schale, President Obama’s 2008 Florida campaign director.
Precinct 519 is the quintessential swing precinct in the heart of the key swing region of the nation’s most important swing state. Case in point: After choosing Obama in 2012, the precinct’s voters veered hard right and elected his archcritic Republican Rick Scott for governor in 2014. In both races, each candidate won the pre- cinct by less than 2% of the vote.
If Hillsborough is any measure, things aren’t looking good for Republican nominee Donald Trump. A Sept. 22 poll by St. Pete Polls, a Florida-only polling firm, had Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leading Trump in Hillsborough by 48% to 42% among 1,902 likely voters surveyed, with a 2.2-point margin of error.
“I was a Democrat for many years,” McCaughey says, as bulldog Josie Mae snuffles at her feet. “Now I’m a Republican. I wanted to vote in the primary for John McCain, so that’s why I switched, and then I never changed back.”
But after choosing GOP candidates in the past two presi-
dential contests, McCaughey can’t say with any certainty what she’ll do next.
She sighs. “I’m 50/50 at this point. And my husband? I think he is, too.”
Hillsborough County is a miniature model of the United States (though not that miniature at 1,266 square miles, which is bigger than Rhode Island).
It’s multicultural, multiracial and multi-political, with Democratic blue in the urban centers and Republican red on the outskirts, shot through with a fierce independent streak.
Hillsborough’s population of 1.3 million people is divided into three nearly equal political parts: 39% Democrat, 32% Republican and 29% independent or no party affiliation. The county, the fourth-largest in the state, has one of the highest percentages of voters not choosing a party among Florida’s 67 counties.
McCaughey came from Colorado, where there’s a Democratic governor and a divided Legislature. By way of Interstate 75, Tampa and much of Florida’s west coast also have a strong Midwestern influence, characterized by voters with a penchant for crossing party lines in state races, Schale says.
McCaughey, like many voters here, looks past party and weighs the good and bad of Clinton and Trump.
“What really concerns me about Trump — and I know he’s kind of loud and whatever — is that he doesn’t have the political experience of Hillary,” McCaughey says.
Still, Clinton’s policies trouble McCaughey, especially support for the Affordable Care Act and gun restrictions that could threaten the Second Amendment.
“Since college, she’s been a social activist,” McCaughey says.
The choice likely will come down to the final days in this county, where the outcome is never guaranteed for either party.
Morrissey calls Hillsborough “Everytown America” in his book, Going Red, which looks at the west Florida county and six other battleground counties in the nation: Hamilton, Ohio; Wake, N.C.; Prince William, Va.; Jefferson, Colo.; Hillsborough, N.H.; and Brown County, Wis.
All the counties represent large areas in their states, serve as bellwethers, and voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008 and 2012.
“These are states that Republicans need to win. These are counties in those states that they have to compete in to win. And winning each of these seven counties is reflective of how well they are competing nationally,” says Morrissey. “(Hillsborough) is really where the battleground is in Florida.”
Ana Cruz, former head of the Florida Democratic Party and a 43-year-old fourth-generation descendant of Cuban cigarmakers, says Hillsborough is “a microcosm of what this battleground state of Florida represents.”
“Also, what our entire country looks like … urban areas … suburban areas and also rural areas. Also gender, and our demographics as it relates to Hispanic, black and Anglo voters,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the lunchtime bustle at the West Tampa Sandwich Shop. “That diversity in geography and diversity in demographics makes Hillsborough County such a purple county.”
The county ’s population, like its registered voters, includes a diverse mix of residents, with 51% white, 27% Hispanic and nearly 18% black.
Michele Shenefield, 40, snuggles up to her husband on the couch in the posh Hyde Park Buddy Brew coffee house in South Tampa, where 30-somethings in workout clothes grab coffees from baristas with tattoos and multicolored hair. Shenefield represents Clinton’s vulnerabilities in this swing county.
A white accountant from tiny Apollo Beach, Shenefield says she’s been a lifelong Democrat like the rest of her family. She voted for Obama in 2012 but will likely vote Trump in this election.
Clinton is struggling with her base here, polling at 73% among Democrats in Hillsborough, which is almost 10 points lower than her statewide polls and more than 10 points lower than national polls.
Although Clinton is beating Trump in every age category in the county, she has the narrowest lead among voters ages 30 to 50 at just 2 points. In addition, white voters are the only demographic Trump leads in the county: 50% to Clinton’s 39%.
Trump’s low ratings among minorities mean he has to excel with white voters.
Although Shenefield never considered switching her party to independent, she is pretty divided in her political values. She supports universal health care, one of Obama’s legacies, but believes the U.S. has an immigration problem.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn says Shenefield’s attitude is common among his constituents, who defy political ideology and make elections difficult to predict.
“People here tend to be rather pragmatic, rather practical, somewhat less partisan, which is a good thing as opposed to being rigid ideologues,” Buckhorn says. “People here are capable on any given year of voting D or voting R, depending on the candidate. And so I think this is a good test bed, if you will, for what’s going to happen in a couple of weeks.”
Shenefield doesn’t like either candidate, but she’s leaning toward Trump because she believes he “surrounds himself with highly intelligent people.” And she doesn’t have a high opinion of Clinton’s advisers.
“I don’t want to use the word cronies but I don’t know of a better term,” she says. Of Clinton: “I just don’t believe a word she says.”
Farther into South Tampa’s peninsula, historic Bayshore Boulevard sweeps for almost five elegantly balustraded miles along Hillsborough Bay’s west flank, lined with sleek offices and historic mansions. This is where Hillsborough’s educated elite live — people like Jonathan Sobin, a 65-year-old clinical psychologist.
Sobin is a registered independent who will be voting for Clinton. He often breaks for Democrats, saying, “I don’t relate to the pro-gun, anti-abortion people at all.”
A fiscal conservative and social liberal, Sobin voted for Obama in 2008 and Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. Romney won college-educated voters like Sobin statewide and nationwide, according to exit surveys of voters. But Clinton has reversed the trend, polling several points ahead of Trump with educated voters in both state and national polls.
Sobin likely would have voted for Clinton no matter who the Republican candidate was, he says. But given her opponent, his choice is a “no brainer.”
Still, he says, the negative campaigning has dampened his enthusiasm for Clinton.
“I don’t think people are terribly enthusiastic for Hillary. And my own enthusiasm was diminished, sort of by this whole process over the last year,” he says. “I sort of started to be persuaded a little bit about her being not on top of her game so much.”
About 73% of Hillsborough’s registered voters turned out for the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.
In Hillsborough, Clinton is polling most strongly among African Americans at 76%. But that’s still several points below her state and national numbers, where she easily clears 80% among black voters.
In 2004, John Kerry pulled more than 85% of the black vote in both Florida and nationally, even though he lost by 5 points in Florida and by 31,444 votes in Hillsborough. Obama won in 2008 and 2012 with historic support from minorities and young people, a large part of the Democratic base. In both elections, he received more than 90% of the black vote in Florida and nationally.
“People here tend to be rather pragmatic, rather practical, somewhat less partisan, which is a good thing as opposed to being rigid ideologues.” Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn