Dual crises create Trump backlash
President at risk of voter loss despite positive jobs report
MADISON, Wis. — At the end of one of his most turbulent weeks in office, President Donald Trump was eager Friday to boast of a better-than-expected jobs report to argue the country is poised for a booming recovery. Benjamin Lund was not moved.
The 45-year-old Milwaukee man is a longtime Republican who was raised in a conservative family in the political battleground of Wisconsin. At the onset of 2020, he had little doubt that he would support Trump’s reelection.
Then the pandemic hit and Lund lost his restaurant job. A processing backlog meant he went two months without unemployment benefits. He later watched with dismay Trump’s hardline response to the police killing of George Floyd and the civil unrest that followed.
Lund, who is white, now plans to vote a straight Democratic ticket and rejects any effort by Trump to put a “silver lining” on the nation’s pain.
“The people living the economic reality of what’s soon to be a recession, it’s a very different set of numbers,” Lund said. “It’s almost, in a sense, disrespectful to try and put a positive spin on where we are as a nation.”
That’s a stinging warning for Trump in a state that’s crucial to his bid to keep the White House. Though the president would rather voters focus on an unemployment situation that’s less catastrophic than some economists predicted, Trump’s whipsaw ways are colliding with a pandemic and civil unrest of a scale the country has not seen since the 1960s.
With less
than
five months until the election, Trump has time to solidify his standing. But some Republicans fear voters are simply worn out by Trump.
“People are just so disgusted with how things are,“said Republican strategist Terry Sullivan, who managed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s defeat is far from certain.
He has repeatedly demonstrated the rules that have long governed presidential politics rarely apply to him.
His first term has been plagued by scandal, yet his approval numbers have been remarkably consistent. He continues to command extraordinary media attention and the ability to define the national conversation.
Such skills helped him overcome dire predictions four years ago. There is a key difference between 2016 and 2020, however, says conservative attorney George Conway, husband of Trump chief counselor Kellyanne Conway and a fierce Trump critic.
“He’s the incumbent this time, he’s the one with the record, he’s the one being judged here,” Conway said.
Still, the president inspires tremendous loyalty among Republican elected officials and many rank-andfile voters, particularly among white working-class people who fueled his 2016 victory and are convinced Trump is fighting for them.
Steve Beaver, a 56-yearold commercial cable installer from the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area, said he values Trump’s conservatism and handling of the economy. He sees the protests as unrelated to Trump.
“It really has nothing to do with the way the country’s being run right now,” Beaver said. “It has everything to do with problems with policing right now.”
Trump’s loudest defenders last week were those on his payroll.
Campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh noted the president “expressed horror“at Floyd’s killing at the hands of police and quickly launched a civil rights investigation. He then shifted his attention to the violent protesters, even as reports of violence across the country begin to subside.
“Rioters have burned businesses to the ground, destroying the life’s work of countless people, many of them in minority communities,” Murtaugh said. “The president has made a clear, unequivocal stand for law and order, as Americans need to feel safe in their communities to live and return to work.”
Trump’s approach is helping to energize African American voters against him. Detroit resident Richard Grundy said that, just a few weeks ago, he was considering not voting in November for the first time in his life to protest what he saw as a lack of viable presidential candidates.
Grundy, 38, who leads the nonprofit organization JOURNi, supported Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary and felt the remaining candidates failed to truly address issues facing black Americans. But after Trump’s recent actions, Grundy said he and many other African Americans feel they have no choice but to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“The entire world is desperate to get Trump out of office,” Grundy said. “Just seeing the reaction of the inaction to everything that’s happening, I think we have to vote him out now.”
Republicans on the ballot this year fear another blue wave could extend the Democrats’ House majority and help them reclaim the majority in the Senate. Yet the head of House Republicans’ campaign organization predicted the protests and Trump’s reaction would help the GOP.
“Whether it’s in communities that are getting destroyed every night and that people are watching on TV or in the suburbs, these people want law and order,” said Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota.