The side of the Carney family fridge is covered in the collage you’d expect in a home with two adults, six children, one husky and one black Labrador: school photos, sports schedules, a phone number for the vet and a magnet honouring the household super mom.
The front lawn, on the other hand, has an unusual combination for a Michigan suburb with deep blue-collar roots: one sign declaring a “proud union home” and another backing “Trump Vance 2024.”
After voting Democratic in the last two U.S. elections, the Carneys have flipped to supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump this year — not necessarily because they like Trump, the person, but because they’re struggling with the cost of living.
“Everything’s going sky-high…. It makes me realize how much Trump did for us when he was here, compared to when Biden came in,” said Lindsy Carney, 36, a stay-at-home mom married to a tile worker in Warren, Mich., a small city just north of Detroit.
“But, like, some of the stuff he views and he says, I’m like … eh,” she added, trailing off and wrinkling her nose.
The affordability factor
Americans who vote for Trump are often portrayed as deeply loyal supporters whose feelings won’t be swayed by impeachments, indictments, a felony conviction or just about anything he says or does. However, there are voters in U.S. like Carney, who don’t necessarily like him, but say they’ll be voting for him anyway because they believe he’s stronger on the economy and believe he’ll make changes that will directly affect their lives.
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“There are maybe three groups of voters out there,” said Dave Dulio, distinguished professor of political science at Michigan’s Oakland University.
“One group, they’ve made up their mind about Trump — they hate him and that’s it. There’s another group that is willing to look past his character issues or past statements … and they’re voting for him no matter what.
“And then there’s that other group that doesn’t like him, but is going to hold their nose and vote for him.”
With the U.S. election weeks away, The National’s Ian Hanomansing asks political expert David Dulio to explain the battle for key swing states such as Michigan. Plus, Kris Reyes breaks down how anger over the Middle East is driving Arab and Muslim voters away from the Democrats.
Throughout the campaign, the Republican Party has painted President Joe Biden as responsible for the high price of goods.
Inflation soared around the world in 2021 and 2022 as economies around the world bounced back from a pandemic recession. Some analysts warned the Biden administration’s pandemic-relief spending in 2021 might have contributed, but it was just one of several nuanced factors.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office cited four key players: the pandemic’s supply-chain disruptions, low unemployment, fiscal policy and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Inflation in the United States has since cooled, but the price of food, rent and utilities continues to be a sticking point for voters.
For people like Carney, the complex reasons why prices soared after the pandemic aren’t important. She believes Trump will do a better job at improving her family’s economic situation because inflation, she reasons, was lower when he was in office between 2016 and 2020 — a common rationale among voters who spoke with CBC News.
“It’s groceries. It’s gas. It’s just every cost of living right now,” said Carney, adding salt to a pot of boiling water on the stove. “We’re always behind a bill somehow.”
Voters in the seven battleground states that will determine the winner of the election on Nov. 5 have a negative view of the economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll done this month. More than 60 per cent said the economy is on the wrong track and 68 per cent say the same for the cost of living.
CBC News spoke with more than a dozen voters in four different Michigan communities about the issues most important to them this election. Every one said the cost of living was a concern — ranging from an inconvenience to a crisis.
Several spoke on background, but asked not to be named or photographed with their faces showing because they were concerned about what Democratic neighbours, loved ones and colleagues might think of their vote for Trump.
Promised solutions from presidential hopefuls
About 50 kilometres west of Detroit lies the township of Canton, another suburb. As property manager Jim Alcorn tucked into a leafy Michigan salad at a Leo’s Coney Island restaurant, he noted that he, too, believes life was more affordable under Trump.
“I’m voting for Trump because I like his policies and I think he’s a good businessman,” said Alcorn, 69.
“Trump, the person,” he continued, taking a long wincing pause. “He’s OK. I don’t like a lot of things he does. And I don’t like … he talks about people in a personal sense. I don’t like all that stuff. It should be kept to politics.”
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Trump have promised different solutions to the economy. Harris has said she’ll fight price gouging and increase a child tax credit, while Trump has proposed cutting taxes on overtime pay, imposing blanket tariffs on imports that he says will bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and mass deportation of immigrants.
Harris’s price-gouging ban is untested on a federal level, and economists say Trump’s proposed tariffs and deportation threats will drive up prices for goods and services.
Some voters said they didn’t need specifics because they think Trump is business-savvy.
“I think I’m going to vote for Trump, honestly, because the economy was better, the country was safer when he was our president,” said Andrew Youkhana, 25, whose family owns several local Tim Hortons locations in Michigan.
“I know he’s not a perfect person. Some things he says are not — a lot of people don’t like what he says, but at least he’s a businessman,” he said. “And I really feel like he is going to put American people first compared to the other side.”
Michigan’s Arab and Muslim voters overwhelmingly backed Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, but some now plan to vote for Donald Trump in protest. CBC’s Kris Reyes toured the key battleground state to see how anger over the Middle East crisis and U.S. military support for Israel is costing the Democrats support when they need it most.
Sherry Tubbs, 55, said she never used to vote regularly because she didn’t care for the political circus — “I went to work, paid my taxes and didn’t complain” — but will be supporting Trump this year because she’s fed up with the high cost of living.
“I’m not happy with it. Nobody’s happy with it. I have to decide: Get your car fixed this week or buy food,” said Tubbs, ashing her cigarette outside the home that she and her son could only afford by buying it together.
“I was happy [when Trump was president]. I want that back.”
The antagonistic U.S. election has seen the candidates campaign on pressing issues like abortion, climate, immigration, foreign policy and the sanctity of American democracy. Those are important to voters, Dulio said, but financial trouble is particularly motivating.
“Those daily-experience issues of going to the grocery store, going to the gas pump, trying to make ends meet — I think that that has major impact on people,” said Dulio.
“Even some folks who have soft support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz may find themselves saying to themselves, ‘Hey, look, I don’t necessarily want to support Donald Trump, but the economy’s not great right now and it was better when he was president.'”
Such voter behaviour could repeat itself in the Canadian federal election, with people voting for the party of a candidate they might not like personally because they’re unhappy with affordability under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Food on the table over good character
Laura Stephenson, a political science professor at Western University in London, Ont., said voters who can’t afford to put food on the table will care less about a candidate’s character if they believe they’re going to help.
“A lot of what you care about is not whether you get to hang out with them and shake their hand … but instead whether or not they’re going to enact policies that actually benefit you,” she said.
For years, Michigan’s unemployment rate has been consistently higher than the overall U.S. number. Last year, the state hit its highest job level and lowest unemployment in two decades.
Polls suggest Harris has a slim lead over Trump nationwide, but battleground states are still anybody’s game.
For the Carneys, their swing vote was motivated by one singular issue.
“We are always kind of liberal, [but] we kind of just see who’s there,” said Carney, leaning back against her grey countertops. “This year, our views just happened to go Republican.”
