Before dawn, Dickie Fontaine, a 75-year-old retired Philadelphia teacher, packed up and headed to the 40-degree bloody to be among the first at her local polling station in the predominantly black Mount Airy neighborhood.
While waiting for the doors to open, he thought of his grandparents and great-grandparents who fought for the vote in North Carolina.
“If they just stand up and get beaten and suffer looking to vote, I can line up,” said Fontaine, who voted for former Democratic president and presidential candidate Joe Biden. “I sought to make it personal. I searched after being here. “
In a year in which marginalized Americans disproportionately fought the coVID-19 fatal pandemic, a historical civil rights motion that opposed systemic racism, and a recession that wiped out the economic benefits for black, Latino, Asian, and Native American families, many other people of color exercised their right to vote fought on Election Day. In interviews across the country, an independent sense of political persuasion prevailed: a fierce determination to be heard.
How communities of color vote in this election may only be the next president of the United States. Communities of color make up 40% of the population and many Democrats lean.
But participation is sometimes much lower than that of the white electorate, which has a tendency to vote for Republicans and overwhelmingly constitutes the majority of many undecided states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. And President Donald Trump has tried to convince so many blacks and Hispanic electorates imaginable with the promise of a strong economy and conservative judges.
James Taylor, a political scientist at the University of San Francisco and “Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama,” said he hoped for the participation of communities of color in building this election cycle, partly because of the renewed focus on racial injustice and COVID-19. Nearly a hundred million Americans voted ahead, a figure that suggests that this year you can see record turnout.
“They have all exhausted members of the African-American network, the Latino network, and the American population at large,” he said.
Taylor noted that the black electorate waited nine hours to vote in Harris County, Texas, a state where there is a position to cast votes according to the county.
“That’s when I learned that there was a fierce determination that led to this strong voter turnout in the pre-election,” he said.
In Wisconsin’s battlefield state, Black Voters Organizing for Communities staff prepared a collection of materials that led to the Milwaukee polls, adding Boxes of Cheetos, hand warmers, and ponchos. Formed in the wake of the 2016 election, where black voter turnout declined by about 19% in Wisconsin and helped Trump outperform Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the organizational component of the Democratic strategy to redouble his efforts to interact with the black community.
The pandemic has a greater severity of the work, said Angela Lang, executive director of the group. “The same communities of color that can make or undo a choice, we are the same communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19. “
Wisconsin Republicans also sought further discussion with the black electorate and opened their first workplace on the north side of Milwaukee, where most of the city’s black reactors live.
The party has made significant progress in connecting citizens with employment and the economy, said Andrew Hitt, president of the Wisconsin Republican Party. “Until you have an interest in the countryside, you won’t have much credibility in the community,” he said. .
If 2020 has a record minority stake, any of the applicants must be sure that they will fully benefit from it. Biden hopes his knowledge between the black electorate in Georgia and Latinos in Florida will make a difference. Trump, meanwhile, has the Cuban conservative, Mexican-American and Latino electorate in Texas, Nevada, Arizona and Florida for him to win a term for now.
The focus on the color electorate represents a four-year-old replacement, when blacks’ participation fell nearly 5% compared to 2012, and the share of Latinos and Asian-Americans just below 50%, compared to nearly 80% for white college graduates. Americans, according to the U. S. Census.
Historically, Amerindian voter turnout has fallen behind other ethnic teams due in part to voter suppression policies and systemic racism ranging from costly voter identity regulations to an inefficient and remote postal service.
This election season, the Democratic presidential box has noticed the maximum varied list of applicants to date, with lead generation officer Andrew Yang, former housing and urban progress secretary Julian Castro, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and U. S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard running to update Trump In the end, the Democratic electorate elected Biden, a white man , who then appointed U. S. Senator Kamala Harris, who also ran in the primaries, as her vice presidential candidate and the country’s first woman of color if Biden won.
Trump has had a strained relationship with communities of color.
At the launch of his crusade in 2015, Trump called Mexicans “rapists. “Once in office, Trump called Haiti and African nations a country. The administration’s immigration policies have made it virtually possible for anyone to legally migrate to the United States and separate young people. of their families.
Biden said he launched into the presidential race after Trump said there were “good people on both sides” when asked about a torch parade of white supremacists in 2017 that killed a protester at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Shahid Lodhi, 72, from Montville, New Jersey, emigrated from Pakistan years ago and is a registered Republican, but this year she votes Democrats in all areas.
“For the first time in 50 years, I was marginalized,” Lodhi said.
Sesh Herrera, 20, a computer science student at Austin Community College in Texas, said the more than 4 years had been worrisome because the administration targeted immigrants.
Herrera said he may no longer spend time with friends whose immigrant parents don’t let them out of space for fear that federal immigration officials will arrest them and sport them under Trump’s strictest immigration rules. .
As a result, Herrera, voting in his first election, said he was excited about the texas perspective, a reliable red state for a long time, that might fit blue. “Being a part of that would make me proud,” he said.
Miami resident Gabriella Quintero also voted in her first election, driven by Trump’s policies that she says discriminate against her classmates in Haiti, Honduras and foreign countries.
Quintero, born in the United States to Cuban parents, said she was disappointed by the policy of separating the family circle that left more than 5,000 young people without their parents and the Stay in Mexico plan that forced 60,000 asylum seekers to live in makeshift camps. . Mexican aspect of the border.
“Let’s call it an internment camp,” she says, her motherhood through her side. “The same thing that happened to Japanese Americans in ‘World War II’ came down to would-be Americans. It’s really sad. “
Ana Vega, 72, a Miami resident, emigrated to the United States from Cuba, sees nothing unusual between her and the waves of Mexican and Central American migrants seeking to enter the United States now. Vega said she came here legally, sponsored for a green card through her husband’s family. He worked in a furniture factory until his retirement.
“We didn’t get any help,” said Vega, who voted for Trump. “Now other people come here illegally, they don’t need to work, everyone needs donations.
Trump has continually minimized the effect of COVID-19, which he contracted last month, however, the disease continues to hospitalize African-Americans and Latinos at a rate about 3 times higher than that of their white counterparts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Asian Americans have not only suffered hate crime attacks after Trump’s repeated reference to the virus as “Kung Flu” and “Chinese virus” , but in cities like San Francisco they tested positive at a higher rate than other ethnic groups.
In Arizona, tribe members and members came to vote in Southern Phoenix Indian Ak-Chin.
José Batopis III, 28, first voted Batopis, who is enrolled in the Yavapai-Apache Nation and has the heritage of Yaqui and Tohono O’odham, lives in Ak-Chin and has lost an uncle, uncle grandfather and grandfather to the coronavirus Voted for the Biden-Harris ticket.
“The president who treated the pandemic has been a disaster,” he said.
Georgina Rodriguez, 42, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, focused on fitness problems when she voted in Brooklyn, New York.
“Money doesn’t matter right now,” he said of the economy. “When you die, you don’t take anything. “
His father died of COVID-19 before this year, has young children and said Trump had prioritized public fitness in the pandemic, so he voted for Biden.
“I didn’t get my dad for Father’s Day this year,” he says. “You mustn’t play with people’s health. “
Management of the pandemic by the administration is a precedent for 40-year-old Kiana Keys, a Chicago business executive running in finance who voted for Clinton in 2016. The black mother arrived early at the polls with two of her three children, Jordan, 8 and Dallas. 6.
Keys, who is originally from Michigan but raised in the far southwest of Chicago, said his circle of relatives had been quarantined since March. His grandmother in a resting house had COVID-19 and recovered.
“I couldn’t move on to my son’s graduation. I couldn’t take my son to college. We want to do distance education,” he said. I don’t think this pandemic has been properly controlled. We want this pandemic. Too many people are dying and I don’t want to die. I don’t want my circle of relatives to die. “
Another motivating thing for Keys is the national discussion about systemic racism that was a common theme at his dinner.
“The protests and occasions that have taken place in recent months are things that many of us around our dining tables and on which we communicate each and every night, so it happened on a larger platform, a bigger stage,” he said. I am pleased that the country has opened a window into our reality. “
This spring, the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police reactivated aid for the Black Lives Matter social justice motion and sent thousands of people to the streets of the country to protest police brutality, while the White House denied the lifestyles of systemic racism. and took an unequivocal stance in favour of implementation. In June, Trump signed an executive order encouraging law enforcement to education while repeating that Americans “demand law and order. “
Rasul Freelin, a black police sergeant, and his son, Diata Freelin, 18, voted for Biden Tuesday at an elementary school in southwest Chicago and have been queuing since 6 a. m. in an almost icy climate.
“He has a sense of fairness and respectful interactions for everyone, regardless of what they may believe,” Freelin said of the former vice president. “I think he’s strong, with his fellow formula Kamala Harris, opposed to crime, but he still believes in a sense of fairness and treating other people equally.
Corey Felton, 50, a Chicago device operator for a grinding company, was dressed in a matched Chicago Bears hat and jacket when he voted for Biden. He said he was running with other people that Trump and his “look racist. “
Felton said he voted for Biden because he saw increased violence under Trump, especially through police toward African Americans and Latinos. Felton said he visited his niece’s space on Saturday when a guy shot dead through police a block away.
“Death has happened since Donald Trump got here,” Felton said. “There are more police deaths. I’m even scared. I get arrested and I don’t even know what to do. “
With two stickers of “I Voted” proudly, Hunter Gray, 25, from Denver, voted for Biden, mentioning climate change, abortion rights, and the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as motivators.
However, this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests are of particular importance to her, and she says they have helped raise awareness of police violence and systemic racism.
All the other already knew those things, he said. We have been aware, it is only that our allies become conscious and informed, I knew how the president felt. And I knew how I’d react. “
His fellow Denverr, Evan Anderson, 27, also participated in recent street protests. Anderson, who is black, said he voted for Biden even though he was “not a big fan. “He said Trump was “very harmful and toxic. “”
Another electorate voted thinking about his wallets.
Jeanette Taylor left the Clinton Rose Senior Center in Milwaukee after Tuesday morning. Taylor, who is black, voted for Biden.
Taylor said she only makes $7. 25 an hour as a housekeeper and has five dependent children. His life has advanced in the last four years of Trump’s presidency, he said.
The recession caused by the pandemic has decimated jobs at many levels, however, low-income jobs in the service sector that are occupied by other people of color. Unemployment among black staff is expected to succeed by 30% and 22% for Latinos, erasing the gains made through these economic teams since the 2008 recession, according to the Center for Budgetary and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan institute of studies.
Eliza White, 57, left an electoral college at a South Side Chicago elementary school with a smile. “Biden to the end!” cried White, throwing his head back and raising his arms. “No other ahead. “
White said he had lost a friend and a cousin to COVID-19. She lost her job as a cashier at a grocery store when the store closed amid the pandemic. She said that she had been living off her “little savings. ” as.
“It’s meant to save for a rainy day, ” he said. “My mother taught me that from the beginning.
By contrast, Jose Pastor, who voted Tuesday near Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, said he “don’t do everything” of Trump, but thought about voting for the president just because his locksmith company remains on an equivalent base.
“The Americans are with their wallets and my wallet is fine,” he said.
The pastor said Trump’s other policies, which added his technique to immigration, didn’t fit him in, but the way the president has spoken in derogatory terms about Hispanics rests with him. 2017 “ridiculous”.
When asked which presidential candidate he had voted for, the pastor replied “empty,” cleaned his, and walked away.
Muhammad Masood, 66, from Pakistan, left a fitness center Tuesday that has a polling station in a north Austin mall known as the city’s Chinatown. A little “I voted” sticker was stuck on his shirt. It was the first presidential election for Masood, who became a U. S. citizen in 2018.
Despite Trump’s claims that he would drive a thriving economy, Masood said he hadn’t felt the culmination of that lie. Your homework salary as a warehouse security guard only gradually increases, from $400 consistent with the week to about $500 consistent with last week. He voted for Biden because, he said, he enjoys the economy and creates better-paid tasks for working-class staff like him.
“I vote for America’s long term,” he said, “it’s time for change. “
Marty Byers, a 66-year-old retired structure worker, also had the economy in mind when he voted on the first ground of his seniors’ average in Columbia, South Carolina. He voted for Trump in 2016 and refused to reveal his selection. But while he appreciated Biden’s proposal for the Affordable Care Act, he said he applauded Trump’s handling of the economy.
“The country is very prosperous, other people paint every day,” he said, adding that other people of color have also gotten jobs.
Jerry Kelly, a Columbia resident, was unable to vote fast enough for Biden; waited until Election Day just because it did not accept the mail voting system as true.
“We want to get rid of Donald, temporarily, temporarily and hastily,” said Kelly, 65, a former metallurgist. “He’s looking to push America back through 500 years. He needs to be a dictator and he doesn’t have the temperament to be president. “
Kelly, who was a few steps from his polling place, said he was involved in how Trump had ruled and how COVID-19 had a disproportionate effect on other people of color.
“For every target that dies, we have two or three dead,” he said.
Four years ago, Kelly voted for Clinton and went to bed early, sure she had won. When he woke up and discovered that Trump had won, ” I said, “Oh my God, ” he recalls. “I went to the liquor,”. buy and bought myself a drink.
Jon Johnson also voted for Clinton in 2016. Under Trump, Johnson, a black man, said he became involved in protecting the six children he raised with his wife. He said he was alarmed to see reports of white armed teams harassing Black Biden supporters and still waiting for Trump to convict them.
“I don’t mean Donald Trump is racist, but other people who stick to him don’t seem to like black people,” Johnson, 33, said.
Johnson lost his task of promoting forum circuits over the pandemic, which he said would probably have been more controlled through someone other than Trump: “It happened under his supervision. He thought it was a joke. “
Johnson voted for the user on Tuesday after his wife insisted that he would not be absent from the election. His wife, who voted early, promised her breakfast if she voted. As he came out of a vote in Denver in the middle of the morning, he raised his arms in the air and exclaimed, “I voted!
USA TODAY Contributor: Debra Utacia Krol in Phoenix, Erin Richards in Milwaukee; Kyle Bagenstose in Philadelphia; Grace Hauck in Chicago; Mary Chao in Montville, New Jersey; Ryan Miller in New York.
This article was originally published in USA TODAY: The increase in votes between the black and Latino electorate can have an effect on election results.