The ignored voters: Conservatives who have switched to Trump

A confession: for those who don’t know, I voted third party in the 2016 election for president. I will cast my ballot to re-elect President Trump in this year’s presidential election.

As a conservative, I was a director for Keep the Promise PAC in South Carolina supporting the campaign of Ted Cruz. Trump was someone who had nothing to do with conservatism in a lifetime of influence. He even donated to the most hideous of politicians.

As I have found out ever since, I am far from alone. In the 2016 race, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million with over 136 million votes cast while losing the constitutional Electoral College by a massive amount. The amount of votes who were cast for Libertarian/Constitutional Party Votes plus Evan McMullen (Republican alternative) votes were at over 5.4 million.

What you can see here is that there was a larger amount than usual who voted third party. That number outnumbers the victory margin by a lot.

What I have found is that an overwhelming number of those third party voters have decided to support President Trump this time. My personal reasoning is although I have certainly disagreed with the president as a doctrinaire conservative on several issues, he surprised me by being a stronger advocate on many issues than we have seen.

Take pro-life issues. While we haven’t made the waves that we should on protecting lives, the president has used every maneuver he has in his playbook to defund abortion. Congress hasn’t been on his side but he has been the most outspoken pro-life president in our country’s history, which was completely unexpected on my end.

Wendy Damron of Mount Pleasant, S.C. had a lack of trust during the last go-around:

“Once (Ted Cruz and Rand Paul) were out of the race, I worried that (Trump’s) over the top rhetoric and name calling would damage the party going forward. There was no way I would have ever voted for Hillary, so I voted third party for president and then straight (Republican) the rest of the way down the ticket.”

Damron, who sits on the Board of Directors for the conservative think tank Palmetto Promise Institute, has been pleasantly surprised by just how conservative Trump turned out to be:

“He is unabashedly pro-life and pro-Israel. He has cut taxes and regulations, bringing about a booming pre-COVID economy.”

A common view is one like Jay Kilmartin’s, a restaurateur with locations in Columbia and Greenville. Kilmartin, who was a dedicated volunteer for Cruz in 2016, is one of many impressed by Trump’s “anti-swamp” message.

“I was an original Never Trumper. I wanted my guy (Cruz) elected and I was terribly disappointed in how he was treated by Trump. I didn’t like Trump. He talked like Archie Bunker, then I saw the value in a non-politician ignoring the establishment’s rules in DC that I’ve been screaming about for a decade or more. Trump went in and turned tables over in the back rooms of D.C. and it was glorious. He started to do the things he promised. He was different in that alone. I will work hard this time to get him re-elected!”

The Deep State has become a reality as it is clear his presidency (and candidacy) was illegally targeted by the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s campaign as it has now been set-in-stone by government investigations. President Trump has been targeted like none other and he has also been the first to really stand up the Democrat media and their allies.

 

“I didn’t like Trump. He talked like Archie Bunker, then I saw the value in a non-politician…” — Jay Kilmartin

 

Evangelical activist Debbie Myers of Lexington, S.C. has moved quite a bit from her strong anti-Trump stance of 2016:

“Trump has earned my vote this time around, through his tax and pro-life policies, his treatment of Israel and his understanding of how the economy is supposed to function.”

Myers, who worked on the ground in support of Cruz’s 2016 bid, isn’t completely void of criticizing the president, but has earned her vote with his overall performance:

“The only drawback to supporting him this time is that he turned the handling of COVID over to (Anthony) Fauci and (Deborah) Birx. Huge mistake. They both needed to be sent packing MONTHS ago.” She added that “other than that, I am pleased with Trump’s leadership.”

Myers’ thoughts on the response to COVID closely mirror mine. The president put far too much of the decision-making in the hands of the two leaders of his White House task force. The doctors were obviously not taking into account other factors that are important for the survival of the country. This gave me pause over the re-election campaign this year but then Democrats do what they always do, double down on bad policy and make it even worse as Damron points out:

“The Democrat party has gone so far to the left that I don’t think this country can survive a Biden presidency. Riots, government shutdowns, high taxes, socialized medicine, extreme environmental regulations, sky-high debt and fomenting hate between different groups of Americans are the hallmark of the DNC in 2020. These policies will lead to certain disaster.”

These are just a few examples. The Blaze ­— one of America’s most listened to conservative media outlets, and my most trusted source —has a full list of personalities who have switched to the president this time around. This includes one of the country’s most listened-to hosts, Glenn Beck—who faced backlash from many on the right after refusing to support Trump in the 2016 general election.

My logical assumption is that their listeners have done the same. The same is the case for Daily Wire, where mega host Ben Shapiro and many of the other personalities have jumped on the Trump Train.

These facts as well as almost all “swing states,” where GOP registration has skyrocketed above Democrat registrations, makes you think that there is something opposite of the media narrative. Examples show that not only are people simply deciding to vote for President Trump, but they are actually active advocates for the president.

We shall see what unpredictable events happen over the next few weeks. But, the media and their pollsters ignoring the clear move from conservatives towards Trump is just another reason not to trust them.

 

Preston Baines can be reached on Parler/Twitter @prestonbaines and at prestonbaines@gmail.com.

 

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