Six Trump voters on why they’re backing him this time

Donald Trump arrived in Washington as a political outsider in 2016, upending US politics, reshaping the Republican Party and engaging previously disengaged voters.

He became the first president to be convicted of a crime and still falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen from him.

But he continues to draw strong popular support on the issues that top voter concerns, such as the economy and immigration.

Six of his supporters explain his enduring appeal as he makes his third White House run.

Luiz Oliveira, a small business owner in Nevada, moved to the US from Brazil in the 1980s but he’s not happy with the number of immigrants arriving through the southern border.

“How is this happening in America?” asks the 65-year-old. “All these people crossing, it’s an invasion.”

Mr Oliveira says the Biden administration “opened the border” and allowed it to happen, referring to the rise in border crossings after Biden came to power.

Encounters between migrants and US Customs and Border Patrol at the US-Mexico border hit a record high in December of 2023 but have fallen sharply since, to a four-year low.

He describes how hard he had to work to get his citizenship, finally “earning” it in 2012. “For me to be a US citizen is a privilege, an honour. I love this country.”

Mr Oliveira is confident Trump will put an end to what he calls a border crisis. “You want to come to America? Earn it, like I did.”

Trump has vowed to secure the border and deport anyone living in the US illegally. Harris says she would revive a cross-party bill, opposed by Trump, that would expand the authority to deport people and build more border wall.

A new president will not be the biggest change in Ben Maurer’s life come November.

The 38-year-old truck driver from Pennsylvania is expecting his second child just weeks after the election.

Mr Maurer, a lifelong Republican, is hopeful that next month will mark the starting point of a more prosperous time for his family as Trump potentially returns to the White House.

Last year, his wife quit her job because the cost of childcare was higher than her income. Since then, Mr Maurer has been the sole provider for the family and his wife has stayed home with their eldest child as they await the new arrival.

This would not be the case, Mr Maurer believes, if Trump were president.

“I feel like [Trump] has a handle on making it about the American economy first and the American worker first,” he says.

Trump’s plan to preserve American jobs and to tackle inflation will mean a more affordable reality, he thinks, because business costs will mean cheaper childcare.

Inflation soared post-Covid, as it did in many western countries. Harris has said she would ban price-gouging on groceries and increase housing supply. Trump says he would increase drilling to lower energy costs.

Earlier in her career as an artist, June Carey had to supplement her income with welfare because of how difficult it was to be self-employed.

The 70-year-old from Chico, California, was able to get off welfare after less than five years and she thinks Trump’s policies will provide that pathway for others.

“Being on welfare, I saw how it does not work,” she says. “It creates generations of people who never move on.”

She says it’s essential that Americans are self-sufficient and not dependent on government programmes.

Today, she lives on $1,900 (£1,456) per month from social security. But with the price of food and gas rising under Biden she says she cannot cover minimum expenses and might need help again.

She wants to see politicians create an economy that means Americans like herself can afford the necessities, instead of spending money on “liberal policies”.

And that is where Ms Carey believes Trump will help.

“The former president runs this country like a business and the more he talks the more I am impressed,” she says.

Brooke Riske was not always a Trump voter.

In 2016, unimpressed by Trump or Biden, she voted for a third-party candidate. But the Covid-19 pandemic changed her mind.

“Our government has become too active in our lives,” says the 38-year-old educator from Virginia.

During the uncertainty of Covid, says Ms Riske, Trump was a steady presence. And he cares about the country and wants to improve it, she says.

It’s not just his policies she admires, it’s also the person. Watching him in Instagram videos and podcast interviews, she says she likes what she sees and hears.

“The times where he’s interacting with his grandkids I see the softer side,” she says.

“He kept our country very peaceful for several years, I don’t think a person is capable of that unless they have diplomacy, humanness and kindness in them.”

Ms Riske says she knows that view is at odds with how some others see him but she doesn’t trust how the media portrays him.

“I’ve just accepted him for who he is.”

Jeremy Stevens has long been disheartened by the two-party American political system but when Trump came onto the political scene, he says he felt hopeful again.

He was shocked when instead of working against what he describes as an atypical, novice political candidate, the Republicans “allowed” Trump to take over the party.

The small business owner, 45, was convinced Trump’s proposal for an America-first industrial policy would provide Americans with economic security. “The country is a giant business to be run.”

Mr Stevens, who says he separates Trump’s personality from policy, runs his own car sales and service centre in Maine where he has lived all his life.

High inflation has hit his own family and put a squeeze on his customers – some of them have been forced to put off necessary car repairs.

“They’re struggling because they have to choose between putting food on the table or putting new wheels on the ground,” Mr Stevens says.

The Trump economy put America and Americans first, he says. “That’s what we want to go back to.”

Despite the US economy posting growth and employment figures that are the envy of other nations, many Americans like Mr Stevens feel the country is on the wrong track after years of high inflation.

But the sentiment is divided – 61% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans rate the economy as “good”, a recent Ap-NORC poll found.

Amanda Sue Mathis spent nearly 10 years serving in the US Navy before she was forced to medically retire in 2018 because of her chronic illnesses.

Until 2016, the 34-year-old Michigan resident had never voted. Trump’s entry into politics changed that for her; his candidacy inspired her to cast her first-ever ballot in his favour.

When she thinks about presidential candidates, she thinks about who she would want to report to and who she would respect as commander in chief, she says.

“He or she is not going to be just my president but will decide where we were going, who we were fighting [as a country],” Ms Mathis says. To her, Trump is the obvious choice.

“[Trump] is strong, he is very steadfast and believe he invokes fear because nobody ever knows what he’s going to do,” Ms Mathis says.

“He invokes fear in the rest of the world, don’t mess with America, don’t mess with our allies. “

Trump wants the US to disentangle itself from conflicts elsewhere in the world.

He has said he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours through a negotiated settlement with Russia, a move that Democrats say would embolden Vladimir Putin.