Trump losing voters in rural areas he needs to win: ‘He should have stayed a showman’

President Donald Trump is banking on support from white, rural voters -- but he's losing some of those backers from his unlikely win four years ago.

Plenty of the president's rural supporters are still on board, but The Atlantic's Russell Berman found many of those 2016 backers had drifted toward Democrat Joe Biden this time around.

“Nothing’s been handled,” said Ethan Gagnon, a 30-year-old from Lewiston, Maine, who voted against Hillary Clinton more than for Trump. “I’m just ready for [the pandemic] to be done.”

Marjorie Lewis, a 79-year-old political independent from upstate New York, liked Trump when he was a reality TV star on NBC's "The Apprentice," but she hasn't enjoyed watching his presidency.

“When he was on TV, he was funny," she said. "He’s a showman. He should have stayed a showman.”

Lewis and her husband are worried about violence on the nation's streets, but they blame Trump more than Black Lives Matter demonstrators.

“He stokes the fires,” said 80-year-old Larry Lewis. “The Republican Party to me is a dead party until Trump is gone. Anything that is negative in this country goes back to Trump.”

Pete, a sales manager in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, didn't support Trump in the last election but was willing to give him a chance as president.

“I was rooting for him the first year, but that was it,” said Pete, who declined to give his last name. “He’s a crook. I just don’t believe anything he says.”