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2020-11-02 d
ONE REASON WHY THE POLLS ARE WRONG

Yes, there is a hidden Trump vote

BUTLER, Pennsylvania — A man who came to President Trump's giant rally at a local airport Saturday night said he knew someone who planned to vote for Trump but felt too intimidated to say so publicly. I asked who it was. It was his mother, he answered, but she would kill him if she found out that he told anyone.

"There are a lot of people who are too afraid to put up a sign [for Trump]," he said, explaining that his neighborhood, more than an hour away, was mixed between Trump and Biden voters, and black and white voters. During the protests that followed the death of George Floyd, he said, "I pulled the Trump magnet off my Jeep. Everybody took their signs down. People don't want to be a target."

At some pro-Trump events around Pennsylvania in the last week — the president's event, a big road rally that stretched over three states, a small event for Trump volunteers and activists featuring Ivanka Trump, and in other conversations — a large number of people who openly support Trump said they knew someone personally who would vote for the president but would not publicly acknowledge doing so.

They pointed to the most difficult question of the campaign — how to measure the true number of people who will vote for the president? The phenomenon of so-called shy Trump voters is without any doubt real, but how big is it?

At the Trump events, it's big, if mostly unspoken. At the Butler rally, Kori, from Freeport, said her sister and her father did not vote for Trump in 2016 but plan to vote for him this time. Dana, from Lower Burrell, said she knew people involved in the oil and gas industry who did not vote at all in 2016 but who plan to vote for Trump now. "Biden will shut us all down," she said. "We'll be out of work." Van, from Canonsburg, was one of them. Also in the oil and gas business, he said he did not vote for 25 years. Now, after a few years of oil and gas prosperity, he said he will definitely vote for the president.

At the Ivanka Trump event — held in the middle of rolling farmland on a chilly afternoon — Barb, from Baden, Pennsylvania, said that back in 2016, "I didn't even know my neighbors were Trump supporters until election night." Shannon, who identified herself only as a Pennsylvania voter, said, "You don't tell everyone you know that you support Trump. Seventy-five percent of the people I work with are against Trump. And it's worse now [than in 2016]. A lot of people are afraid to speak up." Added Laura, of Daisytown, "There are people who are fearful of losing their jobs if they support Trump."

At the road rally, nearly everyone said they knew someone who is too fearful, or intimidated, or just too private, to say they will vote for Trump. "I know people in their 50s who haven't voted in their entire lives, and they're going to vote for Trump," said Patrick, from Beaver County. Bradley, from Monroeville, said he not only knew such people, but he was close to them. "I've got family who have never voted," he said.

Sam DeMarco is chairman of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County and also an elected Allegheny County councilman at large. Allegheny County, which includes Democratic Pittsburgh, went for Hillary Clinton with 56.5% of the vote in 2016 to Trump's 40%. In an interview Sunday, DeMarco said shy Trump voters "most definitely exist" in his county. Some are in the upper-middle class suburbs where Trump supporters just don't want to deal with the social aspects of neighbors asking, "How can you vote for this guy?" But others are in traditional Democratic strongholds.

"I'm an elected official," DeMarco said. "I have had at least a dozen Democratic elected officials tell me that they are voting for Trump. They say they don't like where their party has gone, so far to the left, but as Democratic elected officials they can't come out and say it." (read more)

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