trump coalition cracking
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Jill Mott doesn't like the tweets. The hard line on the border is too hard. And when asked whether she will vote for President Donald Trump a second time, she lets out a long, deep sigh.
"That is the question," said Mott, a Republican from suburban Detroit.
In her moment of hesitancy, Mott is the portrait of a small, but significant slice of voters poised to wield considerable influence in the 2020 presidential campaign. They are the 18 percent of voters who described themselves as only "somewhat" approving of the president.
It's a group whose backing for Trump is most tenuous and whose reservations about his personality and his policies reveal warning signs for Republicans, perhaps even more so as he dug in on his demand for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, leading to a budget impasse with Congress that has shut down the government around Christmas.
An analysis of VoteCast, a nationwide poll of more than 115,000 midterm voters conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago, highlights the fractures.
Compared with the 27 percent of voters who describe themselves as strong Trump supporters, the "somewhat" Trump voters are much more likely to disapprove of Trump on key issues such as immigration and health care, and to express divergent opinions on a need for a border wall, gun control and climate change. They are much more likely to question his trustworthiness and temperament.
They are less likely to call themselves conservative, less likely to be evangelical Christians and more likely to have voted for Democrats in 2018. They are more educated, somewhat more likely to be women, and more likely to live in suburbs.
"How he presents himself is the biggest issue," said Mott, a 52-year-old occupational therapist, who addressed her concerns this past week during a break from Christmas shopping outside the Gucci store at the Somerset Collection luxury mall. She also worries about the president's fiery approach to immigration.
