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After 100 days, these Mainers who voted for Trump are still in the president’s corner
Five Mainers who voted for Donald Trump reflect on their hopes and expectations after his first 100 days in office.
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As President Trump neared his 100th day in office Saturday, the Maine Sunday Telegram checked in with five of his supporters from around the state to see what they think about his first few months on the job. They may not agree with everything he’s said or done since taking office, but they are pleased with his job performance so far. This matches the mood of the electorate nationally. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 96 percent of those who voted for him in November would vote for him again.
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Tracie Lammers, Mechanic Falls
"I'm hoping that over these 100 days he's learned some things and maybe he'll have surrounded himself with some better advisers."Tracie Lammers was a lifelong Democrat until the 2016 presidential election, when she switched to the Republican Party and voted for Donald Trump.Tracie Lammers was a lifelong Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries and then voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012.
By the 2016 presidential campaign, her faith in Clinton and the Democratic Party had eroded. She didn’t like the way Clinton responded to the Benghazi inquiry and felt that the Democratic Party was out of touch with the needs of middle-class Americans. So she changed her party affiliation to Republican and eventually supported Donald Trump.
As a small-business owner, she liked his platform of overhauling health care and reforming the tax code. Lammers and her husband, Eric, own and operate Krack Media, a Web design and social media strategy company.
“Obamacare is a real issue for us,” she says. “Health care for us was costing almost $900 a month.” In 2014, she and her husband dropped their coverage through the Affordable Care Act and opted to pay the penalty instead. “It was more cost-effective for us to pay the penalty and then pay for the doctors’ visits as we go rather than shelling out that much every year.”
Lammers says she thinks Trump and the Republican Party will eventually pass health care and tax reforms. She is also glad that he has begun to tone down his rhetoric and brashness.
“I think it’s been a real learning curve for him,” she says. “He’s learning diplomacy in small increments. I’m hoping that over these 100 days he’s learned some things and maybe he’ll have surrounded himself with some better advisers.”
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Matt McDonald, Bangor
"With any candidate, you don't support 100 percent of what they do or their platform or policies."Matt McDonald, shown in downtown Bangor, was a supporter of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race but switched to supporting Donald Trump after Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton.Matt McDonald considers himself to be politically independent. He campaigned for Republicans George W. Bush and Ron Paul, but he also voted for Democrats Mike Michaud and Emily Cain in recent elections.
So supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries was not a stretch for him. And when Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton, changing his political allegiance to Donald Trump wasn’t a stretch, either.
“There was enough commonality between Bernie’s platform and Trump’s platform for me to make that easy switch,” he says.
Both candidates opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and North American Free Trade Agreement, and both opposed getting involved in a war in Syria.
As a Congregational minister, McDonald has long opposed war and joined in protests against the Iraq war.
So when President Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian air base, McDonald was taken aback.
“I was surprised and in some ways oppose it,” he says. As long as the strike is the extent of military action in Syria, McDonald supports Trump’s action. But he’s against any further involvement.
“I fully oppose putting troops on the ground,” he says. “I fully oppose getting into another Iraq quagmire.”
McDonald acknowledges that Trump has views and policies with which he doesn’t agree but says voters have to compromise with any politician.
“With any candidate, you don’t support 100 percent of what they do or their platform or policies,” he says.
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Ralph “Rass” Caldwell, Turner
"We have to get a handle on who's coming to our country. They have to come in the front door, not the back door."Ralph Caldwell poses for a photo in his truck at Caldwell Family Farm in Turner on Thursday, April 27, 2017. Caldwell supports President Trump's policies on immigration, trade and his roll back of some Environmental Protection Agency regulations.Ralph “Rass” Caldwell is quick to say he has strong opinions on just about every subject. The policy decisions of President Trump during his first 100 days are no exception.
Caldwell, who owns Caldwell Family Farm in Turner, has been a farmer all his life and has been frustrated over the years by environmental restrictions placed on his farmland, so he supports Trump’s rollback of some of the Environmental Protection Agency regulations.
“They steal some more of my land every year,” he says, explaining that he is required to build fences and setbacks from vernal pools and brooks and to create a buffer zone in an area of his farm because it is home to a certain species of bats.
He says he understands the need for some environmental regulations but feels that manufacturing industries need more oversight than farms.
He fully supports Trump’s policies on immigration, saying that government money used to support immigrants could be used elsewhere, such as fixing roads and bridges. Caldwell favors the idea of building a border wall to inhibit illegal immigration.
“We have to get a handle on who’s coming to our country,” he says. “They have to come in the front door, not the back door.”
He also favors pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal but wants Trump to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, not scrap it.
“I would trade with Canada and with Mexico, and I wouldn’t trade with another damn soul,” he says. “If we can’t raise it or manufacture it or get it between the Arctic Circle and southern Mexico, we don’t need it.”
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Marge Trowbridge, Sanford
"Rome wasn't built overnight, and he can't just do it in 100 days."Sanford resident Marge Trowbridge holds up her finger to indicate that she thinks President Trump is number one.Marge Trowbridge supported Donald Trump as soon as he announced his candidacy.
“I thought we needed a change,” she says. “I just felt he was the right person.”
She acknowledges that he hasn’t been able to accomplish everything he set out to do in his first 100 days but says the problem is that he inherited a host of problems from the Obama administration.
“He walked into a mess, a real big mess,” she says, pointing to what she sees as problems with the Affordable Care Act and Obama’s immigration policies.
Trowbridge says that she would like to see Democrats and Republicans work together to support the president.
“Instead they’re at his neck, nipping and picking him, nipping and picking him,” she says. “I know there are people out there who still hate Trump. Show him a little respect.”
She approves of all the policies that Trump is trying to change, but in particular she would like him to deal with the drug crisis.
She says that the recovery and rehabilitation system needs to be addressed.
“Until we fix it, unfortunately a lot of people who are on drugs aren’t going to get the help they need,” she says.
Trowbridge says that she believes Trump will eventually be able to make good on his campaign promises.
“I think he’s going to do everything he’s said he’s going to do,” she says. “Rome wasn’t built overnight, and he can’t just do it in 100 days.”
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Thomas White, Castine
"His stance on trade is going to have a lot of impact on me as an International Business and Logistics graduate."Above, Thomas White, a junior at Maine Martime Academy in Castine, poses for a photo at the campus. White says he was drawn to Trump for his America first policies, his stance on immigration and his promise to make the U.S. a strong presence in world affairs. Below, Ralph Caldwell is seen in his truck at Caldwell Family Farm in Turner.Thomas White, a junior at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, was drawn to Donald Trump early in the Republican primaries for his “America first” talk.
“He wasn’t afraid to be an American,” White says.
White says Trump’s efforts to keep jobs in America during his first 100 days in office resonate with people in Maine’s 2nd District, where five paper mills have closed in the past few years. He also says that Trump’s promise to lower energy costs and combat drug trafficking are issues critical to the region.
“Without those two being solved, you’re not going to see the Northeast recover,” White says.
White realizes he has a personal stake in what Trump does with the country’s trade agreements. White isn’t sure what job he’ll land after he graduates next year, but it will likely involve international commerce because of his major.
“His stance on trade is going to have a lot of impact on me as an International Business and Logistics graduate,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s going to be good or bad.”
White acknowledges that Trump could tone down some of the rhetoric and tweeting that he’s done during his first 100 days in office but says that, on the whole, the president is having a positive impact on the country.
“I don’t agree with everything he has to do or say, but I think he’s moving us in the right direction,” he says. “He’s getting Americans talking again.”
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