Kathy Graham, 73, has spent most of her life in rural Carlton, Pennsylvania, where Trump signs line the edge of her 5-acre field.
At a time when many people are unwilling to voice their opinions for fear of offending someone, Graham isn’t shy about sharing her thoughts on where the nation is headed — but she’s also willing to listen.
She spent much of her life as a Democrat, like her parents, and tries to stay open-minded, but as the signs lining her property indicate, she is already certain who she’s going to vote for in November’s presidential election.
“There’s no way I could vote for Biden seeing what I see,” Graham said a week before the first debate between the two major party candidates for president. “He’s not coherent. I couldn’t vote that way for the country. I don’t think that’s the right choice. Had he been better, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Citing inflation, crime, the surge of undocumented migrants into the nation and more, Graham said the country is worse off now than when Trump was president. Trump might not be able to fix it all, but she’s confident things will improve — or at least not continue declining so rapidly.
“I really think if he doesn’t get in, this will turn into a communist country,” Graham said. “That’s where we’re headed — and I feel bad because my grandson’s only 16. He doesn’t know everything that we’ve lost.”
The continued presence of migrants who have entered the country illegally during the Biden administration is particularly troubling for Graham. She fears that such people will obtain health care at the expense of actual citizens or even be granted the right to vote.
“I almost don’t recognize America as it was when I was young,” she said. “Things have just changed so drastically — and it hasn’t been for the good.”
Another Trump term is cause for optimism. Trump’s sincerity has resonated with her since she attended a rally in 2016.
“I want somebody to stick up for our country,” Graham said. “And he always said, ‘America first,’ and that’s exactly the way it should be.”
The thought of another Trump loss, on the other hand, is hard to stomach. She still can’t believe Biden won in 2020.
“I don’t think he did win Pennsylvania,” she said. “I was never convinced that he won, period. I don’t think that election was fair.”
Imagining another Biden victory is the one thing that leaves her momentarily speechless.
“There’s no way he could — there’s just —,” she said, letting out a long sigh. “I can’t see how that could even be possible. I mean, could you?”
Like Kathy Graham, Terrie Tabar, who lives about halfway between Hartstown and Conneaut Lake, grew up in a Democratic family. And like Graham, she’s happy to offer an honest take on the race for president.
But politically speaking, that’s about where the similarities end.
Where Graham sees in Trump someone willing to put the nation first, Tabar, 64, sees a man who never puts anything or anyone before himself.
“He’s always been pretty low on the totem pole — can’t get much lower. Not a lot of ethics,” Tabar said of Trump earlier this week. “He doesn’t care who he hurts or who he steps on, even people who’ve helped him, which is really sad, like Rudy Giuliani and all these people that helped him along. He throws them away. I don’t see how other people don’t see that he’s going to turn on them once he becomes president.”
Graham’s gradual drift away from the Democratic to the Republican party is part of a larger, long-term trend that has trimmed the advantage Democrats hold in Pennsylvania.
In 1998, Democrats made up 48.4 percent of the 7.26 million registered voters in the state and Republicans constituted 42.3 percent, according to state data. As of this month, Democrats make up just 44.4 percent of the 8.77 million registered voters in Pennsylvania. But while the gap has narrowed, the percentage of Republicans has fallen as well: Today, GOP voters make up 40.1 percent of registered voters in the state.
Together, the two major parties have fallen from making up nearly 91 percent of registered voters in 1998 to 84.5 percent today.
It’s a trend that recent statistics suggest could be accelerating, particularly at the expense of Democrats.
For the two years leading up to last year’s elections, independents and other parties accounted for 36 percent of new voter registrations — more than Republicans (34 percent) and Democrats (30 percent). At the same time in 2021, Democrats had led among new voter registrations with 35 percent, ahead of independents and other parties (34 percent) and Republicans (31 percent).
It’s a concerning trend for someone like Tabar, a lifelong Democrat whose parents both served on the party’s state committee, particularly given her view of the current state of the Republican party.
“I’m surprised how cultish the Republican party has become,” she said, pointing to the parade of Republican officials to the New York trial where Trump was convicted of covering up hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election. “All the congressmen have stepped right in line and they have to know what kind of person he is and they don’t care. I don’t know why they’re doing it. I guess it’s just the power — not what’s good for the country, but what’s good for them, just like Trump is.”
Concerns over Trump’s character are all the more important in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last week on presidential immunity, according to Tabar.
Regarding policy issues, Tabar cited her concern for democracy and abortion rights as top motivators behind her support for Biden and opposition to Trump. She also gave Biden good marks for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and felt he had done as well as possible on the immigration front despite Republican opposition.
Tabar acknowledged concerns about Biden’s age and his performance in last week’s debate, but pointed to similar concerns about Trump that she felt had been downplayed in the media.
“When you don’t have to remember any facts, you can just go along and be loud and do whatever you want. When you have a whole brain full of facts and you’re trying to tell the truth, you have a little bit harder time — like he says, it’s hard to debate a liar,” Tabar said, referencing a comment of Biden’s from after the debate. “I think they need to be harsher on Trump. They didn’t say too much about Trump, and I don’t understand why.”
Tabar sarcastically gave Trump the advantage in one respect: “Trump entertains better, I guess,” she said. “He doesn’t run the country well, but he entertains well.”
Tabar was home watching her preferred news channel while her husband was out golfing when she spoke to the Tribune. While her views were every bit as partisan as Graham’s, Tabar too said she was willing to listen to those who see things differently. After decades of marriage to a staunch Republican, she has to be.
Recalling an agreement not to talk politics with their three sons because of their split allegiances, Tabar said things had not worked out as planned.
“He talked to the boys quite a bit because they’re a little conservative, so yeah, that’s not what happened,” she said, laughing. “There was a little bit of deceit and manipulation in there, but he’s a Republican, so what do you expect?”
Still, Tabar was optimistic that her sons — two of whom married more progressive spouses — “might come around.”
As for her and her husband, the couple avoids watching the news together but is doing well otherwise.
“It’s a little rough,” Tabar joked, “but we’re still hanging in there.”
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