RALEIGH, NC (AP) – Jay Copan does not hide his disregard for the modern Republican Party.
The 69-year-old has been a staunch Republican voter for the past four decades and has regretted casting his ballot in 2016 for Donald Trump. When Trump was re-elected last year, Copan appeared on billboards along the road in North Carolina, urging other Republicans to support Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Almost three months after the new administration, Copan considers himself a ‘Biden Republican’, relieved by the calmer leadership style of the new president and the spread of the coronavirus vaccine. Copan is the type of voter Biden counts on when he proposes an agenda that is almost universally opposed by Republicans in Washington.
While Biden meets with a dual group of lawmakers on Monday to discuss its massive infrastructure plan, he bets that the elected leaders of the IDP are making a political miscalculation. The party’s base remains overwhelmingly loyal to Trump, but Biden believes Republican leaders overlook daily Americans who are eager for compromise and action.
The question is whether there are enough Republicans like Copan.
“I really want there to be a good two-party system,” said Copan, a former senior official of the American Gas Association. His vote for Biden as president was his first for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976, but probably not his last. “I think there are a lot of people like me.”
The ranks of Republican crosses are perhaps smaller than he would expect. Only 8% of Republicans voted Democratic in November’s presidential race, according to AP VoteCast, a poll among voters nationwide.
“If there are Republicans voting for Biden, they are not voting for Biden, they are just never Trumpers,” said Phillip Stephens, a former Democrat who is now Republican vice president in Robeson County, about 90 miles south of Raleigh. The province voted for Barack Obama twice, but re-elected Trump in 2016 and last year.
In Biden’s early months, Stephens sees the president more on the left than conservative Democratic voters.
During last year’s campaign, Biden sometimes sued Republicans to alienate the Democratic left. Several prominent Republicans received speeches during the Democratic National Convention, as did former Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
A number of Republican groups also openly supported Biden. Republican voters against Trump have spent $ 2 million on billboards in swing states, with Republicans opposed to the re-election of their own party president. This is how Copan’s radiant and brilliant image, 3.6 meters high, ends up on billboards with the words: “I am conservative. I appreciate decency. I vote for Biden. ”
As president, Biden has spoken out openly to working with Republicans. But he also helped the largest expansion of the social safety net in a generation by Congress as part of a coronavirus relief and stimulus package that did not receive a single Republican vote. He is now asking to spend billions more on infrastructure, indicating a proposal to address people in both parties.
Biden has so far enjoyed wide, relatively dual support, with 73% of Americans approving of its coronavirus response, and 60% approving of its handling of the economy. Still, favorable ratings can not always be translated into votes: Of the more than 200 counties that supported Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016, only about 25 returned to Biden in November.
The limited cross-border capability applies even in places that were the bright spot for Democrats. Biden has the Republican stronghold of Kent County in Michigan, which includes Grand Rapids, the hometown of Gerald Ford. But these gains are more based on local voters getting younger than any measurable surge of conservatives supporting Biden.
Joe Farrington presented himself to Congress as a ‘working class Republican’ and owns a bar in Lyons, Michigan, about 50 miles east of Grand Rapids, in Ionia County, where Trump won nearly two-thirds of the vote. During a candidate debate, he calls Trump an “idiot” and finishes fourth in a five-way primary race.
He says Biden is doing the right thing on infrastructure, social issues and the environment. Still, Farrington has said he will remain loyal to the Republican Party – even if he wants to run for Congress again in 2022, contrary to many of the things it stands for. “We have to change it from within,” he says.
Scott Carey, a former Tennessee Republican Party chief executive, wrote a comment in October saying he was voting for Biden. He has so far been mostly satisfied – but not on the verge of becoming a born-again Democrat. He is concerned about tax increases and excessive government.
“I do not see myself becoming a big Harris, or certainly a Bernie fan or anything like that,” Carey said of Vice President Kamala Harris and Liberal Senator Bernie Sanders. If Biden decides not to seek a second term in 2024, Carey said he would be more excited about Republicans, including ‘some governors I’ve never even heard of who will run for Trump and us again to a will bring sound government policy. . ”
Others, however, say they have left the IDP forever.
Tom Rawles is a former Republican supervisor in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and was critical in Biden with the swing state of Arizona. After voting for Biden, Rawles registered as a Democrat.
“I would rather fight philosophically within the Democratic Party than for the character in the Republican Party because there is no one there,” Rawles said. He is 71 and said he does not expect the IDP to return to principles he can support in his lifetime.
Rawles and his wife sat in their driveway along a busy suburban Phoenix street months before the election, hoisting Biden signs four hours a day. Some drivers stopped to chat or offer water. Others made rude gestures or shouted that they were intruders from the bright blue California.
“Some people will shout, ‘Go home!'” Rawles said. And we would say, ‘We’re in our driveway. Where do you want us to go? ‘”