Manhattan resident Fitzgerald Miller, 36, voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 but he’s not planning on voting for him again in November; partly because Mr. Miller blames him for the illegal immigration crisis.
“I’m having to take an Uber everywhere now and that costs,” Mr. Miller told The Epoch Times. “I don’t want to get on the subway because migrants are sleeping all over the place and they don’t care. It’s a quality of life issue.”
Some 175,000 new illegal immigrants are estimated to be living in New York.
Mr. Miller is among the growing cohort of African Americans in New York who are disappointed in President Biden’s presidency.
“It’s like the governor of Texas said: ‘We don’t know who these migrant people are’,” Mr. Miller said, while at the April 4 New York Republican State Committee Annual Gala in Manhattan.
“These people can kill you, rape you, and you can’t even trace them. If I did something like that, they could find me.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was the GOP gala’s keynote speaker at the Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue earlier this month.
Although in the state of New York only 9 percent of African Americans lean Republican compared to 76 percent who lean Democrat, polls show that President Biden is not guaranteed such a wide margin of the black vote come November.
Pew Research Center data show that 22 percent of African Americans in battleground states are vowing to vote for President Trump in November.
That’s compared to 8 percent in 2020 and 6 percent in 2016.
Bryan Wigfall, 31, was appointed to serve on Bronx Community Board 3 as a Democrat by Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson.
But, Mr. Wigfall switched political parties five months ago and has since become a member of the New York Young Republican Club.
“I read the state and national platforms for the Republican Party and I came to the conclusion that I really like what’s going on with the Republican Party,” Mr. Wigfall told The Epoch Times.
When Mr. Wigfall voted for President Biden in 2020, he was a far-left liberal without knowing fully what his core values were.
These days, he’s more clear.
“I realize I’m not a liberal and that I’m a conservative actually,” Mr. Wigfall said. “That was when I started the process of leaving the Democrat Party and looking for a party that aligned with my values.”
A few weeks ago, he voted for President Trump during the primary election. He’s dismayed with how the 45th president is being treated by the courts.
“It seems like justice is not blind, like it’s supposed to be and that the judiciary on a federal level is being weaponized,” Mr. Wigfall said.
President Trump has been charged in four criminal cases, all charges that he denies.
“Until new prosecutors were elected, these cases were inactive and then it became clear that it was political with the timing of it when there are guidelines that the Justice Department follows, which recommend that federal prosecutors do not indict or prosecute, for that matter, a candidate during an election year so as not to politicize the process,” Mr. Wigfall said.
When Vanessa Simon, 38, looks back on why she voted for President Biden and not President Trump in 2020, she says it was an emotional decision, even though she appreciated the opportunity zones President Trump had planned for underserved communities.
Ms. Simon is now a registered Republican.
“I felt like Trump wasn’t present with incidents like Breonna Taylor and the riots we had everywhere,” she said.
“He wasn’t speaking up leadership-wise and for me, that mattered. I definitely got swept up in what was going on between the pandemic, the financial crisis, and social justice.”
A week before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a statewide stay-at-home order in response to COVID-19—and months before George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis—Breonna Taylor, 26, was shot and killed on March 13, 2020, by police officers who forcibly entered her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, in search of her boyfriend in relation to drug dealing. The boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot an officer in the leg, and Ms. Taylor was fatally shot in the responding fire.
Social justice rallies and riots subsequently erupted across the nation after Mr. Floyd died on May 26, 2020. Both Mr. Floyd and Ms. Taylor were African American.
Although Ms. Simon had high hopes for the Biden presidency, the Queens resident isn’t happy with President Biden as a leader and said she’s voting for President Trump in November.
“This is a question of what really is important to me when it comes to quality of life and the direction of our country,” she said.
“I just see we’re really relaxed on a lot of things that matter to me.”
Isaac Peterson was born to Democrat parents, but he now feels the party isn’t favoring anyone who is middle or lower class.
The 32-year-old Bronx resident works in the public school system and regrets voting for President Biden in 2020.
“I feel like there’s been more jobs for minorities under Trump’s presidency than I’ve seen under Biden or Obama,” Mr. Peterson told The Epoch Times.
As a result, Mr. Peterson has decided to vote for President Trump in November. When he posts about it on social media, however, his friends answer with angry emojis.
“With Biden, it’s just been all false promises,” Mr. Peterson said. “When Trump was president, I felt like our economy was moving up.
“We need more factories and American-made things so we’re not codependent on other countries. Trump was bringing more jobs back into America.”
Manhattan resident Diva Smith, 64, voted for President Biden in 2020 but feels he has failed to turn the economy around.
Although Ms. Smith was pleased with the stimulus checks she received during the pandemic, she doesn’t see them solving anything.
“As far as social security is concerned, of which I’m a recipient, Biden did give us a little bit more money than what we’re normally used to but I think he could do a better job with Israel,” Ms. Smith told The Epoch Times.
“He overstepped his boundaries when he told the Jewish people that they need to be on the down low. No. These people are in a fight for their lives.”
President Biden has described Israel’s war policy as “a mistake” and is calling for a cease-fire agreement.
Ms. Smith is considering casting her vote for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy as an alternative to Presidents Biden and Trump.
“I think Robert F. Kennedy is right as far as vaccinations are concerned, and in many ways I think he’s very much ahead of his time,” Ms. Smith said. “He is a possibility.”
Mr. Kennedy has been a strong advocate for vaccine safety, especially in his work at Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit he founded in 2007.
“When Trump was in office, I think he got a lot of bad advice as far as COVID was concerned,” Ms. Smith said.
“They literally strong-armed people into taking the vaccination. They really didn’t get a chance to do the research they needed to do on them.”
