‘I agree with my wife Trump isn’t likeable, but his policies are stronger’: US families clash over election

In run-up to US election, The Telegraph speaks to four pairs of readers who are clashing over various political issues

With the US Election result in sight, The Telegraph has spoken to four pairs of US readers who are clashing over various issues and asked what their sentiments were towards either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris for president.
The pairs first spoke to us in March – when Joe Biden was still running for a second term – revealing which key political policy they differed most on, with answers ranging from abortion rights to Ukraine aid. 
These readers shared if they had at all reconciled their differences or instead found their views had drifted further apart after Kamala Harris stepped up, and then following the presidential and vice presidential debates.
Mike, 68, and Ava, 41, share a vocation – performing arts – but hugely differ when it comes to politics and whom they will be voting for in the presidential election. 
Ahead of election day, Mike and Ava offered their final remarks. 
On Kamala Harris, Mike “doesn’t see her professing any conviction” except for her stance on abortion. “I agree with her entirely on that one”. 
“It’s something between a woman and her physician, and nobody else’s business,” he asserted. 
When it comes to immigration and refugee status, Mike sides with Trump and has done since The Telegraph first spoke to him. He speaks of the particularly bad circumstances in New York, where he resides. “We cannot educate, assimilate and employ everyone.”
He shared how his grandparents did not speak English very well when they emigrated to the US, yet tried hard and successfully integrated. 
“They learned the ways and means of this place, tried hard to fit in, and went off to war for it – even if it involved fighting their old homelands,” he said
“You have to be able to assimilate, which means a digestible amount of people. And I believe that is Donald Trump’s and the Republican stance.” 
Mike also favours Donald Trump’s “insistence on the West’s self-sufficiency.” He deems wind farms “ridiculous” and stresses the need for a “vast array” of solar panels in the desert states.
Earlier on in October, Mike and Ava were both left unimpressed following the vice presidential debate. 
“I found it profoundly depressing,” said Mike, “Walz looked old, panicky and out of his depth, especially when verbally tap dancing around his lie about being in Tiananmen Square”
“Vance, although incredibly slick and extremely telegenic, reminded me of Justin Trudeau: good-looking, poised, speaking fluently, and campaigning with every sentence but saying very little of substance.”
Ava shared a similar sentiment, commenting: “Vance didn’t do well on the question most important to me – access to abortion and healthcare.
“He sounds and looks like a bad car salesman, repeating the same lines over and over, regardless of the actual topic.”
Although describing Walz as “a bit boring”, she believes he “will appeal to people who prefer a ‘normal’ politician and would have wanted to vote for Joe Biden but are nervous about Kamala Harris.”
Previously, Mike had said he would be voting for the former president, but would be doing so “in a disillusioned manner”.
On the other hand, Ava was previously almost 100 per cent sure she would be voting for Ms Harris. She says she was planning on voting for Joe Biden – although she had concerns about his age – because she could never vote for Trump because of his stance on women’s reproductive health rights.
“There is nothing that could happen, or that Trump and the Republican Party could do, that would make me vote for him.”
For James, 55, and Tom, 25, the typical tropes of elder conservative and young liberal do not apply. James identifies strongly as an independent: “I became a US citizen in 2005 and have voted for both the Democratic and Republican parties since.”
Tom, although residing in the historically blue state of California, is described by his father as “the most conservative of my three kids”.
“Back when I was in school I leaned more to the Left politically,” said Tom, “but now, I would put myself centre-Right. I voted for Trump in 2020.” 
Nearing election day, James updated The Telegraph with his views. “I’m 100 per cent for Harris. Again, if the Republicans had a better candidate, I would have considered voting red.  But the Madison Square Garden event strengthened my view that Trump should not be president again. It was scary…and not just the comedian who made the joke about Puerto Rico.”  
Meanwhile, Tom relayed that not much has changed with his voting preferences. He said, after reading up and listening to political podcasts, that he still thinks: “Trump and his team are mostly on the right track in terms of policy and vision.”
In contrast, Tom believed Kamala Harris’s recent “attacks on Trump sound like the same rhetoric we’ve heard since 2016, and she’s still lacklustre in her media appearances, dodging softball questions.”
“At the very least, her messaging as a ‘candidate for change’ doesn’t resonate at all,” he concluded. 
Despite aligning more with the Trump camp, Tom said he was “sticking with his Robert F Kennedy Jr. vote this time around.”
Previously, father and son managed to find common ground with the Harris and Trump presidential debate: “There’s no doubt that Kamala Harris won.”
But for Tom, who is not a fan of Harris’s policies, her resolute performance did little to sway him to vote for her. However, it did sway him away from voting for Trump: “I align mostly with Robert F Kennedy Jr’s platform and plan to vote for him now.” 
Undeterred by party blocs, Tom is aware that his vote will do little to change his home state of California. He said: “I would like to support the independent candidate, despite his chances of winning here being slim to non” and is “interested to see if voters like me begin to reconsider the two-party system”. 
James, on the other hand, was leaning towards voting for Harris before the Harris and Trump debate – and is now certain. He said: “I came away more confident that I’d already made the right choice. I thought her approach to focus on the future was solid. She seemed far more engaged and confident.”
Kenn and Kathy, both 74, first met 52 years ago in law school. Despite a lifetime together, their political views remain deeply divided – with Kenn planning to vote for Trump and Kathy for Harris.
The couple updated The Telegraph that their views with the election in sight had not changed. Kathy intended to vote for Harris, and Kenn, Trump.
Although Kathy thought Vance to be the “better debater” during the vice presidential debate, she believed his demeanour to be all an act and “not the real Vance.”
“I reject the slick act he put on”, she added. 
Kenn, on the other hand, believes it’s important to separate the policies from the person. He explained: “I agree with Kathy that Trump isn’t very likeable, but his economic and immigration policies are far stronger than Kamala Harris’s.
“Trump believes in a more free-market approach, except for tariffs against China. Harris, on the other hand, seems to think she can determine the price of peaches better than the local market can, which I find crazy. 
“That kind of policy has failed in many countries and is partly why Venezuelans are fleeing to the US after their economy was ruined by similar measures.”
For Kathy, however, her dislike for Trump is a firm line in the sand: “Much of my support for Harris stems from my opposition to Trump. I believe he’s a dangerous person, his policies are dangerous, and the people he plans to bring into his administration are dangerous. 
“Last time, Trump had guard rails which kept him from doing crazy things, but if gets re-elected, he won’t have people standing up to him as he will be surrounded by his cronies. Worst of all, he has shown blatant contempt for the law — stealing classified information is, to me, absolutely inexcusable.”
Keith, 63, and his son Zach Dookeran, 32, regularly discuss politics as a family. They describe how no topic is off-limits: “There’s always something new and crazy to discuss because the world is just going nuts.”
As election day looms, Zach and Keith checked in with The Telegraph to reveal whether their voting preferences had changed.
Zach’s final verdict was this: “Trump remains a very known quantity and Harris remains a walking question mark.”
Keith, similarly, shared that his sentiment has remained unchanged. He would prefer to see Donald Trump in the White House over Kamala Harris, as he previously stated “we need a change in direction, and in general, I prefer Trump’s policy positions on the economy, migration, and foreign affairs.”
The key political policy where the father and son’s opinions diverge is Ukraine aid. 
Zach is in favour of sending all manner of aid to the war-torn country. He voiced his support for the defence of liberal, democratic, capitalist societies – particularly as the US reaps the benefits of other countries holding those values. 
“If a free, democratic society gets invaded by an autocratic neighbour, that just can’t fly,” he stated.
However, Keith suggested that “youth is optimistic” when hearing his son’s views: “America’s only responsibility to Ukraine should have been the evacuation of civilians to the EU.”  
Keith felt the US’s involvement was too little, too late – and if it was up to him, he would have opted for a policy of deterrence from the first sign of Russia’s hostilities. Now, it was for Europe “more so than the US to get up and have that fight”.
Zach is reluctant to vote for either candidate whereas, Keith has reiterated his view that the country needs a change in direction, and he still prefers Trump’s policy positions compared with “essentially more of the same from Harris” following Biden’s administration.
Neither father nor son were keen on what they saw as the “deficiencies of the Harris’s ‘low information’ candidacy”.
Methodology
The Telegraph readers interviewed were asked to score their voting intention on a scale of 100, where 0 is Harris and 100 is Trump.
*Names have been changed