Prominent regional and national Republicans have sought to distance themselves from the presidential campaign of Donald Trump in recent weeks, but many of his grass-roots supporters in the Upper Valley — including women and former Bernie Sanders fans — say what they consider Trump’s straight talk and outsider status still make him a better choice than Hillary Clinton and a continuation of establishment politics.
“Trump could go into the presidential race without having to look for all kinds of support. He had his own money. He can’t be bought, that’s what I think. He’s his own man,” said Hans Schwab, 74, standing on the porch of his Norwich home on Saturday morning.
Schwab owned his own plumbing and heating company for 25 years. He retired, but his Social Security payments haven’t kept pace with his living expenses.
“It seems like we haven’t had a raise in Social Security for five years and now they’re going to give us $6. Wow,” he deadpanned. “What am I going to do with all that? Where am I going to spend it?”
Though it was mid-morning, Schwab was still wearing a bathrobe. That’s because he’s now back in the workforce, moonlighting as a medical courier. His shift ended only a few hours earlier. Schwab said Trump’s business sense will help him improve the American economy, and that his forceful character will allow him to negotiate better agreements with foreign powers.
Schwab’s not bothered by Trump’s recent scandals, which have included the release of a 12-year-old video in which Trump brags about using his power as a celebrity to sexually assault women, and accusations from several different women that has has touched them inappropriately and without consent.
“You don’t know how much of that is put on and how much is true,” said Schwab. “Right now, it’s just mudslinging.”
Clinton seems all but certain to win the Twin States, but a significant number of voters in each are supporting Trump, with recent polls putting him at an average of 41 percent in New Hampshire, and 32 percent in Vermont, according to the online poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.com.
Schwab said Trump’s chances would improve if he could stop stoking the flames of scandal and return to issues of substance.
“He’s going to have to tone his attitude down a little bit. He’s gotten a little extreme,” said Schwab. “He has to get back there with common sense and decide what he’s really going to do with the country.”
Schwab isn’t a longtime Republican voting for Trump out of a sense of partisan obligation. He’s cast votes for Democrats, he said, and his early pick for president was Sanders. Schwab’s not the only Sanders voter to have turned to Trump as the next-best-choice to shake up what they see as an irredeemably corrupt political system.
Dale Pare, a 28-year-old truck driver from Quechee, seems like a natural Clinton prospect. He voted for Barack Obama in 2008, gets his news from Vermont Public Radio and supported Sanders in the primaries.
But now he’s voting for Trump.
“There’s not much I like about him, but he’s the lesser of two evils,” Pare said. “Hillary is something else. The emails, she’s lied about security issues. The list just goes on and on and on.”
Pare, who is suspicious of the timing of the sexual assault allegations against Trump, said it’s time for a change.
“There’s not much true about him either, but we’ve seen what Hillary’s done for 30 years,” Pare said. “I would rather take a chance on a somebody different.”
Gloria Baker, 68, who works in the housekeeping department of a hospital in Newport, Vt., has always favored Democrats — she went for Clinton in the 2008 primary against Obama — but not this year. She was an early supporter of Trump during the primaries, and her opinion hasn’t wavered a bit. The stakes are higher than any individual scandal, she said. “Because Trump is not a politician. We have to get politicians out of the White House They’re ruining this country,” Baker said. “The last good president we had was Ronald Reagan. He was an actor.”
She said she doesn’t believe the women who have waited so long to accuse Trump of sexual assault, and that the 12-year-old video does not bother her.
“Who hasn’t said that? That’s locker room talk,” she said.
Young parents Erin Mullen and Jeremy Heath were loading Halloween supplies into the car in the Wal-Mart parking lot in West Lebanon, their two small children proudly showing off their pirate costumes.
Mullen, who works in home health care in Lebanon, was eager to talk about her planned vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Mullen said Stein’s progressive politics make her a natural second choice for members of the Upper Valley Young Liberals who, like Mullen, used to back Sanders. “A lot of those guys are big Bernie supporters and endorsed him,” she said.
“I’m voting for Donald Trump because he was on wrestling a while ago,” said Heath, referring to Trump’s occasional appearances on professional wrestling entertainment shows. “That’s an honest answer.”
Mullen pretended not to hear him.
“The Green Party, they should have some recognition,” she said. “I think with the way the race is lined up now —”
“Donald Trump was on wrestling,” interjected Heath, who works at the Salt hill Pub in Hanover. “He speaks to my people.”
The two eyed each other affectionately.
“We have different opinions,” said Mullen.
Heath said that in 2008 he tried to cast his vote based on an informed opinion, but now he’s sorry he did.
“Last time I thought people knew what they were talking about and we wound up with Obama. Now I have to have mandatory health care,” he said. “I’ll stick to my ignorance.”
Much of the support for Trump has been interpreted as anger at the system, but some Trump voters, including John Oliver, a 45-year-old disabled veteran from Tunbridge, said he’s actually buoyed in a positive way by the thought that Trump can cut through red tape and restrictive language.
“People are so pumped up for this PC stuff to end and for us to get back on track and grow jobs, make this economy good and quit with this liberal Supreme Court bit,” said Oliver, who wore a hat from the White River Junction-based Riverbank Church and a tidy button-down shirt.
Oliver’s faith is important to him, and for several months he planned to cast a write-in vote for Cruz, his first choice in the primaries. But when Cruz endorsed Trump last month, Oliver followed his lead — the scandals haven’t swayed him.
“God loves all people and I’m not here to judge him. The judgment is for the Lord to do. Not me, man,” said Oliver. “He’s a human and we all have our own faults.”
Oliver said he considered the sexual assault allegations to be a distraction. “One, I don’t believe it’s true and two, I don’t think it has anything to do with us as Americans. I’m sorry if that happened, but it has nothing to do with we the people,” said Oliver.
What’s more important to Oliver are what he considers inroads against American institutions — he sees Black Lives Matter flags flying as high as the American flag, a Supreme Court that could undermine the Second Amendment and other bedrocks of the U.S. Constitution, and an increase in racial strife under the Obama administration.
“We have always had a Protestant Supreme Court,” he said.
Trump, said Oliver, is a straight shooter who has the potential to restore some of the ground that has been lost in recent decades.
Stephenie Smallwood and her 15-year-old daughter, Ashley Smallwood, of Hartland, disagree on the election. Ashley says that, in part because of classroom discussions at Hartford High School about Trump’s scandals, she would vote for Clinton.
“The locker room talk with Trump just made me think he’s disgusting,” she said.
Her mother, who works in the shipping department of Simon Pearce in Windsor had a different take. “I’m surprised Hillary’s not in jail,” she said.
Stephenie Smallwood said that after her first choice, Sanders, dropped out, she gave Trump a second look. She has serious reservations about Trump — she worries that he’ll try to resolve foreign policy issues by bombing other countries — but “If I had to vote for one of them, I’d have to vote his way Because there’s so much more I dislike about Hillary.”
Trump and Sanders had certain things in common, she said.
“They’re strong They’re men,” said Stephenie Smallwood. “I don’t think women need to be president. I think they overreact to certain situations. And the whole email thing, constantly they’re turning more and more up about Hillary that she’s tried to hide. At least Trump is straightforward.”
The sexual assault allegations have bothered her, she said, but she wants to learn more about whether they are based in fact.
“I don’t like it, but I’m not 100 percent convinced” that it’s true, she said. If the allegations were proven, she would probably stay home.
“I’d be very disappointed in our country,” she said.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.