CLEVELAND — Roughly 18 months after embarking on his third White House bid, the closing argument for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign is a message of unity.
But while some Ohio Democrats are nostalgic for a more bipartisan past, others are skeptical the two-term vice president and Delaware’s 36-year senator can reintroduce civility to the political discourse.
For Sandy Arancibia, half-huddled in her car after California Sen. Kamala Harris’s event at Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County Community College on Saturday, the outcome of next week’s election between President Trump and Biden would expose “who our country really is and what our values are.”
The Rocky River teacher, 57, said Trump’s divisiveness had repelled friends and neighbors in her conservative lakeside community, which is west of Cleveland.
“I know people that traditionally are Republicans that will not vote for him just because he’s… mean, is the word they use, mean,” Arancibia said.
She believed “more middle of the road people” were “just done with him” because of the “animosity,” providing Biden with an opportunity to coax them to his side.
“In the countryside, if Biden could reach those people more,” she said. “He hasn’t done a lot to reach out to the Latino population either, but I feel like all of those groups are people that like to think that they’re compassionate. If you think of Christians traditionally, they’re supposed to be: ‘What would with Jesus do?’”
Samantha Candela, 60, was braving a chilly breeze outside the college’s garage for a glimpse of Biden’s running mate as her security detail whisked her away. Candela, who had nicknamed Trump “Dumpster” and refused to acknowledge him as president, said that “the hatred, the nastiness, the backbiting, the undercutting government” that she saw was made worse by voter fragmentation.
“That’s what scares me. Are we just selective hearing in this country to what we want to hear instead of the truth?” the Cleveland embroidery shop supervisor asked.
Cuyahoga County is important for Democrats. High turnout in the Democratic stronghold can cancel out Republican votes in Ohio’s more rural areas. But Cuyahoga County Republicans are determined to show them up.
Ralph King, a member of the Republican Party Cuyahoga County central and policy committees, scoffed at the idea of “lifelong politician” Biden heralding a shiny new era of unity. King told the Washington Examiner on the phone from Bedford, south of Cleveland, that so-called silent Trump supporters have gone dark because they are “afraid of being targeted” by Democrats.
“People are afraid to put up opposing yard signs because people spreading your message of unity are attacking them,” King said of Biden. “[Biden’s] message of unity is breaking windows, catching crap on fire, beating people up. How is that unity?”
The Main Street Patriots co-founder stressed that unity is a message most people could get behind, but there is disagreement over the definition.
“And the other reason is, ‘I’m going to put American workers first,’ and he’s already talking about a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Back to the union workers that I was talking about, that’s competition, that’s taking their jobs, that’s lowering their wages,” he said. “He can put whipped cream on it and try to make it pretty, but I don’t know if people necessarily believe that that unity is an American unity.”
In a two-hour voting line that wrapped the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections building, Wendy Horn, 42, conceded that both sides had damaged political institutions with hyperpartisanship. She used Biden and Trump’s “immature” squabbling during the opening debate as an example.
The Cleveland child welfare supervisor agreed that the word “unity” was vulnerable to interpretation.
“I’m voting for a lot of different reasons, but I feel like the state that the country is in, we have become very divisive with our current leader right now, and I feel like there are a lot of different agendas that are being pushed that are not supportive of all Americans,” she said.
Clad in blue like her sorority sisters, who broke out in dance to music being blasted by a Black Lives Matter van parked across the street, Horn said Biden’s stump speech line about being “the president of the United States for all Americans” resonated with her.
“And when you have a president and people who are following him who also don’t support that, that’s a problem for the American people,” she explained.
Alana Garrett-Ferguson, 28, sat down with the Washington Examiner at a nearby bus stop after casting her ballot. She wasn’t sure the post-Nov. 3 political landscape will be as smooth-sailing as Biden hopes.
“If he was to win, I think that he probably has all intents and purposes of wanting to be that person who is able to unify,” the Cleveland community activist said. “I don’t necessarily think that he will, unfortunately, because you do have so many things that have happened, especially when we look at the racial uprisings of this summer. We look at COVID-19, and that has polarized people.”
Garrett-Ferguson was also dubious since she predicted Democratic primary fissures, papered over for the general election, would reemerge during a Biden administration.
“We haven’t listened to people at the margins. Joe Biden being picked and not listening to a lot of the youth vote and not listening to a lot of the LGBT or people of color vote. All of those people were left out,” she said. “But I think if he was to win, it would lay a foundation that every group would be able to continue to advocate for themselves and for their interests without worrying about being under a tyrant or a dictator.”
Ceciley Jones, 53, distilled her and other Democrats’ reaction in a sentence. The quiet Cleveland bus operator beckoned the Washington Examiner over to her place in the long queue.
“Unity? There probably should be more of it, but I’m not sure that there ever will be, unfortunately,” she said.
Trump leads Biden in Ohio on average by less than 1 percentage point, according to RealClearPolitics. Ohio offers the nominees 18 Electoral College votes, and no Republican has won the White House without the state.
