GOP voters in Delaware voice hope election signals new direction for U.S.

What questions do you have about the 2024 elections? What major issues do you want candidates to address? Let us know.

This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

With the presidential election just a few days away, the high-stakes race is never completely out of mind for Delawareans running errands or out shopping.

Republican candidate former President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris are making their final pitches this week ahead of Election Day.

GOP voters ducking into stores in a shopping center in New Castle County voiced concerns this week about the state of today’s political discourse and hope a new administration will put America on a positive track.

Norm Jacobs, a retired police officer, said he supports Trump for president because he liked Trump’s policies when he was in office four years ago.

Jacobs said one reason he likes Trump is because he opposes noncitizens entering the country through the U.S.-Mexico border. The former president is promising mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

“People are getting raped, getting killed,” Jacobs said. “You know, people are living in fear.”

Data compiled by academics and think tanks have shown that immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans. 

Jacobs said he’s also voting for Trump because of his support for Israel in its war in Gaza and his opposition to transgender people playing on women’s sports teams.

Wilmington resident Kane Phillips said while he’s a registered Republican, he’ll be supporting Kamala Harris this year. He said he hopes the “hate-mongering” will go away after the election, including the kind of remarks made at a recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“There were some very derogatory comments made to American citizens,” he said. “I don’t care for that.”

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe received fierce blowback for calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” during his rally speech. Another speaker, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, falsely described Harris at the rally as “low IQ” and inaccurately described Harris’s race, which is Black and Asian American. Trump also has questioned the vice president’s intelligence.

Harris subsequently had to distance herself from comments made this week from President Joe Biden, who appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage” in a Zoom call. He later clarified his remarks to say he meant their attitude toward Latinos. Harris became the Democratic nominee after Biden, who represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate for 36 years before becoming president in 2020, withdrew his candidacy for a second term in July.

Phillips said he hopes the country will turn the page after next week’s election.

“[I hope] the results are accepted peacefully and that we move on as a country and get rid of hate and work to create opportunity for everyone,” he said.

The economy and high prices are top issues for Jacobs and Phillips. It’s also an important issue to Republican voter Eileen McKee, who was picking up some Halloween items at a shopping center in Wilmington. She said she’s living off of Social Security and finds it hard to get by.

McKee said she voted for Trump in hopes he would lower the cost of living and make it easier for seniors to access healthcare.

“We can’t afford anything. It’s horrible, especially groceries and normal everyday things,” she said. “It’s just really a shame.”

It can be difficult to be Republican in Delaware, McKee said, especially in a city like Wilmington where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans. According to statewide data from the Delaware Department of Elections, registered Democrats total about 353,000 and registered Republicans make up nearly 206,780.

“You don’t talk about it,” she said. “Especially in the senior center and places like that, really you can’t talk about it, but they know where I stand.”

Early voting is open at a number of locations throughout the state from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Sunday. Election Day is Tuesday. The polls close at 8 p.m.