Feature: U.S. voters hesitate to decide next president due to concerns over economy, immigration

by Xinhua writers Deng Xianlai, Xu Yuan, Hu Yousong
DETROIT, the United States, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) — With U.S. Election Day just days out and both candidates entering the home stretch of their campaigns, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump have been holding split-screen rallies in key swing states, among them Michigan, where voters are most concerned with issues including the economy and immigration.
Situated along what’s known as the Rust Belt where the heavy industry is concentrated, Michigan has 15 Electoral College votes and, along with battlegrounds Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, is one of the three “Blue Wall” states that Democrats cannot afford to lose in presidential elections.
Recent polls showed Harris and Trump were neck and neck in the Great Lake State. A Thursday survey by the Washington Post gave the incumbent vice president a 1-percentage-point lead with 47 percent of support among likely voters compared to the former president’s 46 percent.
In Michigan, the decline of the automobile industry, which has historically been the state’s economic mainstay, and the protracted high inflation following the COVID pandemic, have left many residents largely dissatisfied with the economic agendas of both parties, even if some still have their preferences.
Chelsea Wilson, an African American waitress at a restaurant in downtown Detroit, described herself as an undecided voter with a 50-percent chance of voting for either candidate and a 50-percent chance of not voting at all.
“What I’m saying has nothing to do with the color of my skin,” Wilson said, adding that neither of the two candidates has done anything that has brought tangible benefits to the middle class, to which Wilson said she belongs.
While Jordan Wilson, an administrative assistant at the University of Michigan who cast the absentee ballot for Harris, praised the Democrat for proposing tighter regulation for big corporations to combat price gauging.
Tony, a laid-off auto worker attending a Trump rally in Detroit, said that the former president at least gave him a slimmer of hope that life can be better compared to the last four years of Democratic reign.
Once a Democratic voter, Tony accused the Biden-Harris administration of having done nothing for auto workers like him. He said the decline of America’s auto industry has gone “too far,” and that even Trump can’t “fix anything.”
But “what are the Democrats doing? They’re in power right now. Why can’t they fix it?” Tony said. “This guy, maybe he’ll do something, maybe he won’t, but at least we got that maybe,” he added, referring to Trump.
Immigration is another issue that divides Michigan voters and could sway their election choices.
While Trump’s fixation on building the border wall and his discriminatory remarks have exacerbated xenophobic sentiments, the Biden-Harris administration’s prescription — the self-proclaimed “more humane” approach — hasn’t stopped the surge of migrants along the southern border, making immigration a more contentious topic of this election cycle.
Alayna Fogle, another staffer member at the University of Michigan’s administrative office who voted for Harris, said she doesn’t see conservative ideas aligning with her values on immigration because they lack respect and protection for minority rights, including those of immigrants.
But for Ruthie Gherasim, a Trump rallygoer and daughter of an immigrant family from Romania, Trump’s border policy is good in that it will make America safe. “Secure borders is probably my political view on that, for sure,” she said.
James Tower, a veteran and retiree in Detroit, doesn’t approve of Trump’s border wall, which he called “a big mistake.” As for the Biden-Harris administration, “I never really got the drift of exactly what the reasons behind their deportation were,” he said.
“We need to get people willing to come here and become a protective part of the communities without bringing extra crime,” he added. ■