Before the coronavirus pandemic, Desi Marinov considered herself “apolitical.” The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, flight attendant didn’t even bother to vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Losing her job due to lockdowns to curb the spread of the coronavirus and then waiting weeks for unemployment benefits has changed all that. Now she is determined to make sure President Donald Trump is not re-elected in November.
“I will go and vote and will convince as many people as I can … that this is the wrong type of leadership,” she said.
Marinov, 42, is the kind of voter that keeps the Trump campaign up at night. Of all the battleground states he won in 2016, Florida is the biggest prize with 29 Electoral College votes.
Trump had been considered the favorite to win Florida again over the prospective Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, despite edging out Hillary Clinton there by just 1.2%.
But two months into the biggest crisis of his presidency, the Republican has received mixed reviews for his response. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, a staunch Trump ally, meanwhile, has been criticized for being slow to close beaches and blamed for a faulty unemployment compensation system that locked hundreds of thousands out of benefits.
Recent polls now show Biden neck-and neck or slightly ahead of Trump in Florida as well as nationally. Trump’s internal polling shows the same, according to a Republican source close to his re-election campaign.
One in five Floridians are aged 65 and older, the age group most vulnerable to the coronavirus, compared with one in six nationally, according to U.S. census data from 2019.
“It’s much more competitive than it was. He doesn’t have the edge with seniors that he had before,” the source said, asking not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “Florida... is in play.”
According to a Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll from mid-April, only about a third of Americans 55 and older think the country is headed in the right direction, down 6 percentage points from a similar poll in February.
Their preference in November’s election showed a small improvement for Biden, who drew 44% support from older Americans, about the same amount as Trump, who had 45%, according to the poll.
Biden’s strength with independent voters such as Marinov also appears to be growing, albeit marginally. He had a 4% lead among self-identified independents in April, compared to his 2% advantage in February.
Trump has been frustrated by the recent polls, at one point sharply questioning his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, over the numbers, according to a source familiar with the matter.
In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Trump said he did not believe his lock on the state was in jeopardy.
“I don’t think so,” Trump said, but added, “Look, I haven’t been looking at polls for a while.”