‘We’re going to have a civil war’: Trump and Harris voters offer their election predictions

The followers outdoors Donald Trump’s rally in Milwaukee have been in an excellent temper, smiling and laughing — in some circumstances, beer in hand — as they descended on the 18,000-seater Fiserv Enviornment with hours to go earlier than the previous president’s arrival.

Lots of the Wisconsinites current have been hardly optimistic about the way forward for their nation, however concerning the election itself, they have been remarkably upbeat.

“He is bought the votes, and though (the Democrats) are gonna attempt to cease him with some faux votes,” mentioned Holly, a retail employee in her early 30s. “Trump is gonna Trump them.”

Milwaukee is a solidly Democratic metropolis in a hotly contested state. Wisconsin offered among the many narrowest margins of victory for Trump in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and all of the latest polling signifies that it’s prone to be extraordinarily shut this 12 months whichever manner it votes.

Nonetheless, the Trump followers Euronews spoke to on the rally have been unanimously assured, and in some circumstances sure, that he would win each their state and the nationwide vote.

One particular person predicted Trump would get 55-60% nationwide, a quantity that doesn’t match any mainstream ballot and which might make him the highest-scoring presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The identical voter, who declined to offer his identify, was promoting unofficial T-shirts studying “Kamala is not black, Joe has dementia” (he was black himself). Requested what would occur if Harris did actually win the election, he instantly turned tense and started to stroll away.

“Costs’ll go up,” he mentioned over his shoulder. “I see possibly some females being happier, however in any other case, f*** that s***.”

‘I name her laughing Kamala’

Certainly, Trump is lagging behind Harris on the subject of feminine voters, largely due to his position in appointing Supreme Courtroom justices who voted to overturn Roe v Wade and with it, the federal proper to entry abortion care.

The gender hole was underscored by a stunning ballot that put Harris three factors forward of Trump in Iowa, which had not beforehand been thought of a swing state this cycle.

Based on the ballot’s crosstabs, Harris is surging amongst feminine voters, and people over 65 help her by a two-to-one margin. If these patterns have been repeated throughout the Midwest or the nation at giant, Trump would virtually actually lose by an enormous electoral faculty margin.

Nonetheless, the gang on the rally appeared completely gender-balanced regardless of the proliferation of totally misogynistic Trump-themed clothes on the market. References to profession development by way of sexual favours and prostitution have been stamped on clothes in every single place. A person in a ketchup-red swimsuit and orange wig stormed across the crowd with a stack of shirts studying “Trump versus tramp” and screaming on the high of his lungs, “It is MAGA time, b***h”.

Outdoors the sector automobile park, a girl was promoting reasonably extra demure merchandise. She provided a unique rationale for her help for the previous president, grounding it in coverage reasonably than animus towards the opposite aspect.

“I feel he is gonna win,” she mentioned, reflecting fortunately on what she felt Trump had executed to convey down the price of dwelling by way of fracking. “And if Harris does, I will be fearful about these unvetted immigrants coming in. Not that immigration’s unhealthy, however you want to know who’s really coming into the nation.”

Linda, a suburban grandmother in her late 50s decked out in a vermilion Trump hat and metallic purple lipstick, additionally had a policy-centric concept for why Harris would lose.

“Persons are drained up of paying the costs that they pay for every little thing — groceries, gasoline, meals, medical, providers, it is all loopy,” she mentioned. “It occurred with this final administration.”

Concern and anger at inflation have been on the centre of the marketing campaign, whilst the speed of inflation comes down and the US financial system stays robust on varied measures. However Linda’s opinions of Harris herself have been reasonably much less easy.

“She’s a Marxist, that is what I feel. She’s being fed every little thing from the Obama administration. So something they need her to say, she’s simply repeating it, and it is not even real,” Linda mentioned.

“If you happen to discover, when she’s interviewed — if it is on the spot and never at a deliberate occasion and he or she does not have something to learn from, she does not know the way to reply a query as a result of she does not know what is going on on,” she defined.

“Really, there’s an article about this: she sustained a head harm many, many, a few years in the past, they usually say that this giggle that she has always is from a head harm and that she nonetheless has it. Look it up. It is info that folks must find out about her.”

Euronews couldn’t discover any article making this declare, however there was loads of discuss on the best about Harris’ talking model and the quantity of her giggle. Trump himself has attacked her for it many occasions since she changed Biden, saying at a rally in July, “I name her laughing Kamala. Have you ever seen her laughing? She is loopy.”

‘They’ll strive it once more’

The temper at Harris’ rally in Atlanta, in the meantime, was very totally different. The gang roared underneath a blazing solar and the candidate herself was in tremendous spirits, however speaking to the individuals trickling out afterwards, it was laborious to search out anybody who thought of the election a executed deal.

Not that there weren’t optimists. Evangeline, who has manned a poll drop location throughout early voting, mentioned the sheer variety of Georgians casting ballots upfront of Tuesday is itself trigger for braveness.

“4 million of us have already voted, and we’re solely 10 million altogether,” she mentioned of the state’s voters, who’ve been returning their ballots at a document charge. (The Republican Social gathering launched a lawsuit making an attempt to cease counties from permitting voters to return their ballots the weekend earlier than the election, however a decide threw it out.)

However for all her optimism about voter turnout, Evangeline had a grim expression on her face as she talked about Trump.

“Remember they tried to steal the vote on this state final time,” Evangeline mentioned. “They’ll strive it once more if she wins.”

John, a longtime Democratic activist, mentioned he was most fearful about what may occur within the hole between the vote on 5 November and the certification of the end in Congress on 6 January subsequent 12 months.

“It is a perilous time. It will be fraught with all types of potential skulduggery on their aspect. I feel we will need to be vigilant,” he warned.

“It will go to the courts, and my huge worry is that the Supreme Courtroom in some way provides the inexperienced gentle to state legislatures to overturn the need of the individuals.”

“Our solely hope is that if Kamala Harris can win by a sufficiently giant margin in sufficient states that it turns into troublesome to try this,” John mentioned.

Like the opposite Harris voters filtering out of the rally, John was extremely optimistic about Harris herself and her agenda, however with an unmistakable metal in his eyes. Whereas Harris and her operating mate Tim Walz commerce on exuberance at their in-person rallies, the marketing campaign’s messaging to grassroots activists is shot by with anxiousness and strain to carry the road lest the election slip away.

It was that projection of self-discipline that set the Harris rally in Atlanta aside from Trump’s. A lot of the seen merchandise was official and slick reasonably than bodily and textually crude and the perimeter across the out of doors far more tightly managed.

The one actual voices of disruption have been two loud teams of pro-Palestine protesters, each chanting, “Harris, Harris, you possibly can’t conceal, we cost you with genocide”.

The day after tomorrow

As for what the consequence would imply, each candidates’ supporters have been loath to be drawn on the results of the opposite aspect successful — partly as a result of neither was eager to consider it.

When Euronews requested two aged Harris supporters in Atlanta what they’d do within the occasion of a Trump victory, their faces turned to stone. “Properly, what can we do?” one mentioned, her arms visibly tensing. John, together with his laser give attention to the authorized wrangling after the votes are counted, mentioned that one other Trump time period “might be the top of democracy”.

“It was mentioned in 2016, when he was elected, amongst those that knew him finest, that if he bought into the White Home he would by no means depart, that he would strive at the very least to change into president for all times.”

Again in Milwaukee, Euronews requested Holly what would occur if Trump misplaced. She was something however circumspect, and her exuberance gave approach to one thing extra ominous.

“I feel there can be a civil conflict,” she mentioned with no second’s pause. “Our nation is already divided, however it’s solely going to change into extra divided. And what occurs if there is a conflict with a international nation? The US goes to depend upon her to be the commander in chief?”

Requested what she would do in that state of affairs, she had a easy response: depart.

“Someplace the place it is English-speaking, not as costly to dwell. Italy. Iceland. I’ve heard nice issues about Finland.”