Swing state voters tell NYT why they’re ditching Biden for Trump in 2024

Recent polls of swing state voters showed former President Trump with an edge over President Biden in six key battleground states where he was narrowly defeated four years ago. 

Now, some of those voters who supported Biden in 2020 are explaining why, looking ahead to the 2024 election, they want Trump back in office.

Frederick Westbrook, a retired Las Vegas hotel worker, told The New York Times in an interview that voting for Biden to kick Trump out of office was “the biggest mistake of my life.” 

“As a Black man in America, I felt he was doing unjust things,” Westbrook said of Trump. “He’s got a big mouth, he’s not a nice person.” But while his view of Trump has not changed in the last four years, Westbrook told the Times his cost of living has risen too high under Biden’s watch.

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President Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees for president in 2024, will face off against each other in a rare presidential election rematch this November.  (Getty Images)

“Everything is just about the economy,” said Westbrook, who now drives for Lyft to support his fixed retirement income. “I don’t really trust Donald Trump at all. I just think housing, food, my car, my insurance, every single piece of living has gone up.”

The view that Americans are not better off today than they were four years ago is shared by others who were among the 14% of survey respondents who said they won’t vote for Biden a second time, according to polls released Monday by The New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

The survey results and follow-up interviews reported in the Times on Friday suggest discontent over the economy and the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza, and a deterioration in support for Biden by younger, Black and Hispanic voters, “threaten to unravel the president’s Democratic coalition.” 

Jaredd Johnson, a 25-year-old voter who works in marketing in Atlanta, told the Times he had hoped Biden would restore the country to a pre-pandemic normal, but doesn’t think he has. Despite his reservations about Trump, he said he plans to vote for the presumptive Republican nominee in November.

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Voters told The New York Times they are dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of the economy, illegal immigration and foreign crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.  (Getty Images)

While Jonson said he understands the importance of supporting Ukraine and Israel, supplying Gaza with aid and helping immigrants, conversations with his friends and family “are suddenly less about what’s happening overseas and more about how we are struggling here, too.”

Christopher Sheffield, 61, a counselor for veterans in Thomasville, Georgia, told the Times that whatever concerns he may have about Trump’s attitude toward race are not as important as crises abroad that could lead to another world war.

“I’m an African American — of course I worry about racism,” he told the paper. “But guess what? I’ve been dealing with that my whole life.”

Biden is “a good guy,” Sheffield said. “But when I look at him, he looks weak. With North Korea, Putin, and all those boys ready to act, I think they will be a little bit more reluctant to challenge Trump than they would with Biden.” He said he would vote for Trump in November.

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Amelia Earwood told The New York Times she thinks Trump is “a horrible human being.” But she said, “I’m voting on his policies, and I think that he could straighten this country out, while Biden made a ginormous mess out of it.” (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell said it’s no surprise that Black voters like Westbrook and Sheffield are moving away from Biden and towards Trump.

“The pundits and analysts view the Black voters supporting Trump as an anomaly, and they are wrong,” Caldwell said. “Many Black voters were browbeaten into voting for Biden in 2020 by the media and celebrity cultural figures like Charlemagne the God with promises and predictions of a presidency that would serve the Black community well, and Black folks now realize they have been bamboozled by the left and media.” 

“Considering their economic conditions under the Biden administration are now far worse than under Trump, many feel they have no choice but to support the man who actually got the job done and made many feel more financially secure,” he added.

Other voters told the Times that persistent inflation — which clocked in at 3.4% in April, down from the 2022 high of 9% but still well above the Federal Reserve’s target 2% rate — illegal immigration and Biden’s decision to withhold an arms shipment to Israel demonstrate a need for big change in America.

“All of our core values are gone, gone, and I’m just not pleased at all,” said Amelia Earwood, 47, a safety trainer at the U.S. Postal Service in Georgia.

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She told the Times she thinks Trump is “a horrible human being,” but said, “I’m voting on his policies, and I think that he could straighten this country out, while Biden made a ginormous mess out of it.”

The Trump and Biden campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.