CNN One Thing

So you guys just voted?

Yes.

How'd it go?

It was a quick.

Yeah, it was awesome...

I spent Election Day in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, at a polling place set up in a local high school.

Who'd you vote for?

Donald Trump.

Bensalem is in Bucks County, one of those key suburban counties outside Philadelphia that experts were watching closely. And from a purely anecdotal point of view, I did see and hear from a lot of Trump supporters at this polling place. One person even showed up in a truck towing a giant speedboat with Trump plastered on the side. What's your top issues? What brought you out?

Absolutely. The economy and the border. Both.

'But then hours later, after the polls closed, the numbers backed up what I was seeing. After going for Democrats the last two cycles, Bucks County swung back towards Trump, moving to the right by nearly five points compared to 2020, according to initial results. And we saw this rightward shift in more than 2000 counties across the country. Miami-Dade County in Florida was particularly eye opening. It moved to the right by more than 18 points compared to 2020. Trump won it by double digits, even in deep blue states like New Jersey and Illinois. Vice President Kamala Harris ran well behind President Joe Biden's 2020 results. So who are the people who jumped on the Trump train for the first time? Today, we talked to one of them from CNN this is One Thing. I'm David Rind.

Thank you for calling CNN...

After the election, my colleagues at CNN Digital set up a voice mailbox where voters could send in their reactions. Many Democrats who called in were upset, bewildered, and frankly, scared.

My daughter is an environmental activist and she is terrified, obviously distressed, and is going to start an environmental group at her middle school in response to try to take action.

I'm really just calling on behalf of my long term partner. He's a trans man and we're really scared. He's really scared about his health care access. We know for a fact that it's only a matter of time that his health care will be stripped from him.

My husband and I are extremely disappointed that Trump won. And to be honest, we are a bit afraid of the next four years and what they will entail for our family. We're recently retired and I think we're going to be heading out of the U.S. for our retirement is just not a good place to live anymore.

Most Trump supporters, of course, were elated. But there was one message that really stood out to me.

If you would have told me I would be supportive of the Trump candidacy four years ago, I would have laughed out loud. I would not have supported a Trump candidacy four years ago, eight years ago, ten years ago. But something fundamentally needs to change.

Can you explain what you meant by that?

Yeah. It's pretty straightforward. I had personally to find his. His tact or lack of. It's it's it's reprehensible some of the stuff he says and does. But at the end of the day, it's not really about the person to me. It's about who's going to represent America's interests and advocate on their behalf.

This is Nevin Skalko. He lives in the Chicago suburb of Gurnee with his wife and two kids. He works for a medical sales company. Remember I mentioned Illinois earlier. It swung towards Trump by eight points in this election. And Lake County, where Nevin lives, also shifted to the right by five points. Those kinds of small moments help explain why Trump is on track to become the first Republican to win the popular vote in two decades. And so I wanted to find out how Trump was able to convince Nevin to do something he had never done previously.

I had never voted Republican before, and I don't think my political views have changed so much as I think I reference this on the voicemail is I don't think my political views have changes as much as the goalposts kind of shifted.

So you you voted for Biden in 2020.

Correct? Yeah.

And in 2016, Hillary?

Yeah. That was a tough one.

But you say your your political mindset hasn't changed, but you voted for Trump this time around. How do you make sense of that?

Yeah. Yeah. So you. Again, tough question, but the way I make sense of it is just comments. So, okay, I'll give you a perfect example. My eighth grader, he was in eighth grade and my oldest was in eighth grade. And we got a opt out request or option from the health teacher. Opt out. You can opt out of history. You can opt out of English. So I did a little digging. We don't want to obviously assign same or anything like that. And I went down and I actually did the research that looked at the course material and yeah, it's a little, little graphic. So I don't want to drill too deep into that in terms of that kind of ideology. And I think Illinois is one of only two states to adopt the comprehensive sexual education.

And just to quickly clarify what Nevins talking about here, in 2022, a new state law required the Illinois State Board of Education to adopt the national sex education standards, which teach concepts like consent and boundaries, along with pregnancy and sexual health. But districts and parents were allowed to opt out of the requirement, and many did. Some parents, like Nevin, said, those kinds of conversations should be had at home.

So that was a huge one. And then also, my grandfather was born in the Ukraine in 1921. And yeah, he was conscripted in World War Two, and his three brothers and father all were killed, unfortunately. So. Through that lens. Geopolitically, I'd been obviously keeping up with the Ukraine Russia situation and Israel and Gaza and all of that. And I think that was a that was another thing is internationally, we really didn't have. The conflict, the level of conflict that we have now.

Well, you have ties, you know, in some ways to Ukraine. So when you hear Trump talking about ending the war or how do you feel when you hear stuff like that?

It's a tough one. And the rhetoric has definitely been spun up pretty hard, especially coming into the election. And there's been stuff coming out of Senate and more vocal House leaders that that was a tough one for me to kind of to square. But I do think, unfortunately, you can't win everything. First and foremost, I'd like obviously the Ukrainian people and the Russians to stop dying in mass. I think that would be a huge a commonsense thing to negotiate. I do believe there would be a negotiated settlement. And unfortunately, I believe that will end with Ukraine having to cede some sort of land. So I basically I think some new channel of communication is better than this brinksmanship that we've been on, because we're if we keep this pace, we're on a direct collision course with a the largest nuclear power in the world.

Did you consider at all voting for Kamala Harris in this election at any point?

I did. Absolutely. Absolutely. The reason I shifted was, one, lack of policy.

Like specifics.

Exactly. Everything. Everything was kind of just, you know, the $25,000 for first time home buyers. I think there are three, three and three main sticking points. But there was no way. There is no clear path here. And also the lack of hardball interviews, I guess. She really only did 2 or 3. Mainstream is going to use that. I can recall one with Anderson Cooper. She did a town hall. But again, there was really I still don't know what opportunity economy means.

But I guess on the other side, Donald Trump I am thinking about that moment at the debate when he was asked about Obamacare and he said he had concepts of a plan that's not very specific. Does that bother you at all?

Absolutely. Absolutely it does. Yeah. That both sides do it. It drives me absolutely nuts where there's no concrete. This is on day one. This is what I'm going to do. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But in specifics like, yeah, that was very childish. And again, there's personality I don't care for. There's delivery oftentimes I do not care for it. But then there's also results. If you look at his administration, there were no conflicts and anything like that. But yeah, the specifics in the over the lack of with Obamacare and it's kind of it's kind of childish. I'll admit it is. Yeah, I've got a secret plan. But until you elect me, I'm not going to tell you the plan. Right. I could imagine someone doing that in a job interview, like, yeah, I know this is exactly what I do in this situation, but you have to hire me first. So. Fair question.

Like, when did you make up your mind then that you were going to go for Trump?

I did not. I didn't early vote or anything like that. I went on Tuesday and that was the only election I was sleep over. So I would say. Maybe like three. I'm on Election Day. I'll have to ask my wife because she is not happy.

So you're saying like the morning like hours before polls had opened, you still hadn't made up your mind?

Yeah, I knew it was an important vote. And I knew the day knowing my vote nationally probably wouldn't make a difference for president because Illinois is always going to be deep, deep blue. It was just the right thing to do as my my vote. So where I was, what I believed was right for the future of the country. Well, so.

We're a few days out. I mean, how do you feel about the way you voted?

I'm happy. I stand by it. The other thing that shocked me was I honestly thought Kamala was going to win the general, at least the popular vote.

What does that say to you?

The majority of Americans support a Donald Trump presidency.

The Democratic Party in general. How do you feel about how it kind of approached voters, voters like you this cycle? And do you think there's anything they're kind of missing with how people like you all over the country are feeling?

Yes, absolutely. Being a cis gender white male, I don't think the campaign was tailored towards my demographic.

Like, is there any issues specifically? I'm thinking about the way they they focused on, you know, reproductive rights. Are you saying like, that's just not something that was like top of mind for you?

No, I think I and that's, again, classic neo liberal values. I fundamentally believe in right to choice. If if you got kicked down, which it has to a state by state the you know kicked down from federally mandated to the state then that's something I'm okay with. I'm in favor so that there's the clash right the dichotomy there of less government and all that. But yeah. So long story short, yeah, I do think that focus basically top top line issues for me in this order were. International conflicts. Economy, which whoever says on on the right that our economy hasn't flourished under the Biden administration is lying.

So you don't buy the argument that the Biden administration has driven the economy into the ground or anything like that.

What they've done and again, the Fed and within conjunction with the Biden administration. Absolutely, absolutely done a great job. I mean, the soft the soft landing. I mean, we're not out of the woods yet, don't get me wrong. But I would have I would have thought by now that we would have come crashing back to earth to reality. Actually, I think everything's kind of overvalued right now. And all of the American economy is a meme stock.

I guess. What are you what are you looking for from a Trump presidency then, as we approach these next four years, like are there specific promises he made on the trail that you're you look at and are like, if if that's not acted upon and achieved, then that's that's going to make me upset and go back to the other side. Like, how are you thinking about that?

Yeah. So the biggest thing is the busloads of migrants. While I think it's horrible to use human beings as a political sign in a political statement. Look, gave it to and all that, we have to shore up the border. That's a that's a huge thing. We just we just physically can't support the level of migrants in Chicago. You know, I take the kids down. We take five minutes from the train station, we take the kids down and there's like an encampment. And then the DNC comes in and we can clean it all up and then dances over it. Within 48 hours, those tent cities are back up and out. Yeah, Violent crime is I don't know the statistics on that. I won't speak to it. But yeah, if basically what a non failure of a Trump presidency would look like to me is if he can bring us back from the precipice of full on conflict with Iran, that would look great. We could get North Korea back to where we had them when he left office. That would be awesome. A negotiated settlement, no matter, just basically get the fighting stop in Ukraine and Russia. So, yeah, shore up the border. Keep the economy on the on track. Keep keep having it doing what it's doing. Keep adding jobs, keep growing GDP. That would look like a good vote cast, in my opinion. I guess what I would end on is kind of a message of unity. I know they're like, My stepdad is a perfect example of this. It is devastating. So you have like half of the population that's related and half of the population that's you know, the sky is falling. But just in having and having the conversations and their conversations, right. And having a conversation, I at least in my in my experience, I found that there's ten issues most people agree on, 8 or 9 of them. So we're not as far apart as we think.

Well, I really appreciate you taking some time to share your thoughts. I really appreciate it. And have a good rest of the day.

Yeah, no, I appreciate you asking some tough questions and catching me on my toes here. So I appreciate the opportunity.

One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Victoria Fleischer, Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. I'll talk to you all then.