Delaware GOP voters voice hopes and worries days before general election

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With the presidential election just a few days away, the high-stakes race is never completely out of mind for Delawareans running errands or out shopping.

Republican candidate former President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris are making their final pitches this week ahead of Election Day.

GOP voters ducking into stores in a shopping center in New Castle County voiced concerns this week about the state of today’s political discourse and hope a new administration will put America on a positive track.

Norm Jacobs, a retired police officer, said he supports Trump for president because he liked Trump’s policies when he was in office four years ago.

Jacobs said one reason he likes Trump is because he opposes noncitizens entering the country through the U.S.-Mexico border. The former president is promising mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

“People are getting raped, getting killed,” Jacobs said. “You know, people are living in fear.”

Data compiled by academics and think tanks have shown that immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans. 

Jacobs said he’s also voting for Trump because of his support for Israel in its war in Gaza and his opposition to transgender people playing on women’s sports teams.

Wilmington resident Kane Phillips said while he’s a registered Republican, he’ll be supporting Kamala Harris this year. He said he hopes the “hate-mongering” will go away after the election, including the kind of remarks made at a recent Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“There were some very derogatory comments made to American citizens,” he said. “I don’t care for that.”

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe received fierce blowback for calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” during his rally speech. Another speaker, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, falsely described Harris at the rally as “low IQ” and inaccurately described Harris’s race, which is Black and Asian American. Trump also has questioned the vice president’s intelligence.