Daniel Allott's book, "On the Road in Trump's America: A Journey Into the Heart of a Divided Nation," is a thought-provoking perspective on why President Donald Trump's reelection outcomes are looking favorable now more than ever.
This book, in Allott's own words, "is a deep study of nine counties throughout the country in nine states in crucial places" that spans three years' worth of work.
"Each has something unique to tell about the Trump phenomenon," he reports. "Over 200 counties voted for [President Barack] Obama twice before switching to Trump, and six of the counties surveyed were Obama-Trump counties, including Macomb County, Michigan, and Erie County, Pennsylvania. I wanted to get a good cross-section of the country, and two of the counties turning more liberal are Orange County, California, and Salt Lake County, Utah."
Demographic changes are, in Allott's words, "a big part of the story in California, and the big difficulty for Republicans to keep that congressional district." When it came to Utah, Allott saw "that Salt Lake is becoming more progressive (less Mormon), which is the trend of cities across the country. Utah's 'Silicon Slopes' are attracting more people from California because of the affordability to live there."
Perhaps one of the most interesting counties to ponder is Robeson County, North Carolina. Allott describes this critical county as "the most racially diverse rural county in the country that voted twice for Obama and then swapped to Trump. It has a huge Native American population and suffered a significant amount of job losses due to NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement]. When Trump came and said that we need to renegotiate NAFTA, and did, it showed that he listened to the people. That proved to the people that Donald Trump is not a typical politician, and that feeling of being listened to was a national response that [Allott] got [from Trump voters]."
Allott came away with the proof that Trump has resiliency in his voting coalitions. One of Allott's big findings is "Trump lost very few supporters and they are still on board with him. What I heard from the people who did not vote for Trump in 2016 but plan to now was that they were impressed by the fact that he could set an agenda and actually checked off most of his promises. The promises that he didn't achieve, in the eyes of his new supporters, were not caused by any lack of action on his end but came from the Democrats and some RINO [Republican In Name Only] Republicans."
The last, and certainly not least, of Allott's findings deals with the Democratic Party's chances of winning back Democrats that voted for Trump. Allott holds that the "rationale of having Joe Biden be the candidate to capture disaffected Republicans and the Obama-Trump voters is highly troubling. It's simply that the Democratic Party has moved so far to the left, including how Trump has changed the GOP, but also since 2008. Biden has moved along with everything toward the left, and the voters that I talked to just don't see it with the Democratic Party. If the Biden campaign thinks that they can win back those voters, then I think they're sadly mistaken on that."
If the president is reelected, it will inarguably demonstrate that the pundits inside the Beltway needed to get a breath of fresh air in Trump's America. They can begin by reading Allott's book.
Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
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