One might assume that in battleground states where 2016 Trump voters switched and voted for Democrats in 2018, that it might be bad news for Trump. But according to a new poll out by the NY Times, that’s not really true:
Midterm victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin gave Democrats hope of retaking the Rust Belt battleground states that handed the presidency to Donald J. Trump in 2016.
Yet success in the midterms might not mean as much for Democratic presidential candidates as the party might think. Nearly two-thirds of voters in six battleground states who voted for President Trump in 2016 — but for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 — say they intend to back the president against each of his top rivals, according to recent polling by The New York Times Upshot/Siena College.
Here’s a few examples of what the NY Times said they were hearing from these votes:
Many of the voters who said they voted Democratic but now intended to vote for Mr. Trump offered explanations that reflect longstanding theories about why the party out of power tends to excel in midterms.
Michelle Bassaro, 61, is a Trump supporter, but in the midterm election, she voted for the Democrat in her district to balance the administration’s power. She said she had voted for Republicans when Democrats were in the White House for the same reason, consistent with research that shows that some people intentionally vote for divided government.
Another reason was local: The Democrat promised to bring more jobs to her area, Nanty Glo, Pa. (The name comes from a Welsh phrase that means “streams of coal,” but its coal jobs have disappeared.)
Voters often think differently about state and national issues. Some said they had voted for their local Democrat in the midterms because the person had served well for a long time, or because the candidate’s policies would directly help their community. But presidential politics were another story, they said. Many of the white working-class voters in the Rust Belt who supported the president in 2016 were traditionally Democratic voters who backed President Obama in 2012 and even continued to vote Democratic down-ballot in 2016. Democrats generally held on to these voters in 2018, but the reasons many of them voted for Mr. Trump, like his promises on immigration or the economy, could still be relevant.
Michael Townsend, 38, a high school-educated construction worker in Dunmore, Pa., was a lifelong Democrat — until he voted for Mr. Trump.
“In the last couple years, the Democrats had kind of been losing the work, and I thought Trump might get us that work,” he said. “And to be honest, I’ve been in construction 21 years and the last two years were the best years I’ve ever had.”
He voted for the Democrat in the midterms because he liked his ideas on less polarizing local issues, like veterans affairs and opioids, while he said the Republicans were too focused on Washington politics. He has also been intrigued by Bernie Sanders. But he’ll probably back Mr. Trump again, he said.
They give more examples of this but you get the idea. Local politics are often different from presidential politics. In North Carolina we had Democratic governors for years and years but would almost always vote Republican in presidential elections.
So while this is good news for Trump, it may also be good news for Republicans if people vote for the straight party ticket when they vote for Trump.