Trump fan says his golden sneakers pushed her over the edge: 'I'm not voting for him'
A woman identified as Barbara recently told her story as a voter for Donald Trump who had never crossed party lines since she first started voting at the age of 18 — until the first openly transgender woman, Danica Roem, stood for the Virginia state Senate.
After Roem was elected, Barbara told Salon's Brian Karem she has voted for Roem every time she's been on the ballot.
“Her opponent was talking about what a danger she was to us," Barbara said.
"But she was the only one that was talking about the huge traffic problems we have near where I live. She was the only one who said she’d try to fix them. I had to drive those roads. My husband drives them for work every day."
"...When it came time to vote, I thought I’d give her a chance. I haven’t regretted it once."
Now Barbara said she's planning to cross party lines once again in the 2024 general election — and vows she'll never vote for Trump again.
The reason? She said Trump "Is wearing me out."
“I agree with his policies a lot. I want a border wall. I want to hold the Chinese accountable. I want more conservatives in government,” she said.
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But, according to Barbara, it was Trump's $399 golden sneakers that he marketed as a fundraiser that pushed her over the edge. “I ain’t voting for him. That’s the Golden Calf right there as golden sneakers," she said.
As Karem points out, Barbara's dissatisfaction with Trump isn't a guarantee that she will vote for a Democrat in 2024 — or that she will cast a vote at all. But she says something happened to her recently that opened the possibility of her voting for Biden.
“My cousin sent me a tape on Facebook. “It was Joe Biden talking about Snickers bars. I thought it was crazy at first, I mean, what the heck is a president talking about Snickers bars for?” she said.
“But my cousin pointed out he said something I’ve said ‘there aren’t enough Snickers in the Snickers bar anymore,” and that caught her attention. “I hadn’t even heard of ‘shrinkflation’. I didn’t know that was a thing. I sure didn’t know it was a topic a president would talk about. Yeah, that made me think.”
Karem writes that Barbara's story hints that there may be many more like her — people who've historically supported Trump but are secretly shifting towards Biden as November draws closer.
Roem told Karem that in her district, Trump supporters switching to Biden isn't that unheard of.
“There is a narrative that politics is so partisan and so divisive, but in my district, a lot of voters have no problem splitting the ticket," Roem said.
Karem writes that Barbara's story and Roem's observations bode well for Biden "in a number of swing states for a very specific reason. It takes both campaign infrastructure to knock on doors, and constituent service to sway those voters fed up with Donald Trump."