I’m a White House reporter – this is what swing state voters think about Trump

Welcome to Trump’s America, The i Paper’s World Insight series presenting the sharpest, deepest thinking on an era-defining shift in history and politics, investigating how Donald Trump and his administration have changed the US and the world – and where we go from here. • America can’t afford to retire• The US is becoming impossible to live in• I told Trump over dinner he didn’t have my loyalty – it sealed my fate• This is how the world will look after Trump• I’ve seen what ICE has done to Minnesota. Farage wants to import that to the UK• The men who want to stop women voting• Trump isn’t damaging America. He’s reinventing it How would you rate Donald Trump’s performance as president out of 10? Last month, I sat at the edge of a packed room in a Georgia hotel, hearing how voters in a focus group responded to that question. I doubt you will be shocked by the division, nor the strength of feeling against Trump. But given the sheer number of headlines outlining the President’s falling popularity, not least in the face of a cost of living squeeze caused by his Iran war, you might be surprised by the enduring love still felt for him. Pedicab (rickshaw) driver Andrew, a white man in his fifties, was clear that the “shameful, unqualified, disastrous” President deserved no more than a zero. But Stephanie, a retired lifelong Republican, scored Trump a perfect 10. Kim, a veteran, and Kathy, a military mechanic, gave him 10/10, too. These three white women – all of them over 60 – had voted for Trump before, and were particularly passionate about the President. But another woman, a black 44-year-old office worker, held up an eight. Sabrina was more held back, describing herself as a swing voter who was considering backing the Democrat option in the state race. She wasn’t sure about Trump’s war in Iran (why can’t we just focus on ourselves, she asked) but still judged this to be a successful presidency so far. And as they jumped in one by one with passionate views, it was clear that Trump attracted an exceptional level of love – and hate. For every swoon from Stephanie (“the best President in her lifetime”) came an interjection from Andrew – a gay man in the south who said he was seeing rights hard fought for come under fresh attack. This continued support for Trump is something I have heard often, whenever I step outside of the beltway of Washington DC, in conversations around the country, as well as during this focus group set up for Channel 4 News by pollsters, Public First, in a critical swing state. Public First analysts say this “stickiness” in his popularity is unique. It’s certainly quite striking among this small group of voters, deliberately divided between Republicans, Democrats and undecideds. Stephanie explained her score to me by arguing that Trump is a total one-off, that there will never be another politician like him, anywhere in the world. And that means she can forgive his flaws. “I mean, the guy has guts. People just don’t like the way he says things. But somebody had to. They don’t like it. But I don’t care about that. I care about the results.” “Ok, the man’s not God; he makes mistakes, and he throws out brash comments,” came in Kim, but “I love our President”. She said that what that “thrills” her most is that she sees Trump as “running this country like it’s a company, a business”. Andrew listened closely, choosing his moment to hit back. When he did, it was with force, as he insisted that he didn’t want the country run by business leaders he saw as “out of touch”. “We are not a corporation but a nation,” he added. So what does all of this mean for the midterms in November? These elections could not be more critical, not least given how unleashed Trump has been during this second presidency, whether on immigration, tariffs or the Iran war. Many observers believe this ideological purity has only been possible in Trump 2.0 because this time around, the President has almost total control over the Republican Party, which in turn holds power in Congress. Trump’s fanbase at the American State Fair in Washington. ‘When you score something a 10 out of 10, you are motivated to get out and vote to protect it,’ writes Anushka Asthana (Photo: Mehmet Eser/Getty) But his party could lose that power, a move that Trump recently warned could risk “everything that we’ve got, we’ve gotten so much”. Meanwhile, the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was accused of sounding like a mob boss after claiming that Democrats would turn congressional committees into “investigative” bodies that would go after the President’s family, the cabinet, his donors and his friends. Telling the audience at a conservative gathering that half of those in the room would be targeted, Johnson added: “I run the protection programme. I’ll take care of you.” The enduring support for Trump that we heard in Georgia will be incredibly important for the President. When you score something a 10 out of 10, you are motivated to get out and vote to protect it. But the focus group was a little more generous to Trump than a national poll that Public First also carried out for us. It still showed love, with 12 per cent of people saying they’d score the President 10 out of 10. But 33 per cent opted for zero – and those are people who will be just as motivated to come down against him. And so the key to the elections will be those in between, whose views are more moderate, and whose minds are less focused on the politics of Washington DC. We had voters like that in the room in Savannah, Georgia, including security guard Kenneth, factory worker Santana and Michael – who told us he had two jobs. From 7am to 4pm, he works in a solid IT job, and then one night a week until 10.30pm and from 5am every Saturday, he collates online orders at a major retailer. Michael wasn’t on the breadline; he was middle class, but he had to moonlight in a supermarket to maintain the lifestyle he wanted for his family: eating out now and then, and going on holiday. He said he didn’t want to be anti-Trump for the sake of it and that he wanted to give the President credit when due. But this became harder when he was asked what he was annoyed about. “The one negative that I could say about him? I mean, I’m just trying to think, there’s so many. I was like: which one do I pick?” Kenneth said that most people he knew worked two jobs, and he felt that the Iran war had squeezed everything further. Santana juggled his job at a motor plant alongside being a semi-pro basketball player and working for online delivery providers on the side, and fuel prices going up in the wake of the war was a massive problem for him. The three men opted for middling scores for Trump (two fours and a six). All were frustrated. The question will be whether they turn out in November. If they do, I suspect they’ll vote against the President – which will be a problem for Trump, regardless of all that love.