A military veteran, entrepreneur, small businessman and two-time Donald Trump voter, Brett Husselbaugh has a resume that seemed tailored for one of the everyday Americans speaking slots featured at the Republican National Convention in July.
Except that the St. Petersburg resident is no longer a Republican. And he is voting for Democrat Kamala Harris.
What soured him on the three-peat GOP presidential nominee? In a word, Trump's behavior.
The former president's pressuring of Georgia election officials, his riling up of a mob that subsequently attacked the U.S. Capitol, his impulse to hurl personal insults from podiums and his bombastic social media posts, Husselbaugh said, is way more than he can countenance.
"I don't think he's a very nice man. I don't like how he treats people. I don't like the petty names," he said of Trump, for whom he cast ballots in 2016 and 2020. "I never liked all that, but I looked past that. Not anymore."
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Husselbaugh is not alone in tiring of Trump's comportment, polls suggest.
Polls show Kamala Harris faring better, and perhaps winning on tone rather than policy
While the Make America Great Again rallies continue to draw many thousands to Trump's political vaudeville, loaded with ridiculing skits, mocking routines and outlandish soliloquies, the GOP nominee's standing has evaporated in voter surveys he dominated more than a month ago.
A poll by USA TODAY/Suffolk University released Aug. 29 showed an 8-point turnaround since late July with Harris leading Trump 47.6% to 43.3%. That echoed a similar finding on Aug. 27 by Florida Atlantic University-Mainstreet Research that found the vice president up 49% to 45% over Trump, a 9-point swing since last month.
The race was much closer in a Quinnipiac University survey, a "dead heat" as pollster Tim Malloy termed it, but still with Harris now up two points, 49% to 47%.
Surveys in the seven battleground states that likely could determine the Electoral College majority also found Trump's leads erased. Emerson College's pollsters report Harris is now ahead in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, while the two appeared tied in Pennsylvania. Trump held leads, albeit smaller ones, in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Arizona.
Political observers note Harris, and running mate Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, have initially contested the 2024 presidential race by co-opting Trump's own staple — rallies in packed arenas with adoring, excited crowds. And with an optimistic and joyful message that has amped up the Democratic base and expanded the tent by drawing back core constituencies — Blacks, Latinos, college-educated people, and younger voters, all while widening the gender gap.
MAGA loves Trump's pugilistic politics; rest of electorate maybe not so much
The Harris-Walz campaign, up to now, has not competed on the muddy terrain of economic and border security policy, but on style, rhetoric, tone and optics.
The Quinnipiac poll showed a clear advantage for Harris on those fronts. Respondents rated Trump extremely poor on ethical behavior (39%), mental fitness (51% to Harris' 67%) and temperament (39%).
"On mental fitness, ethics and level-headedness Trump gets clobbered by Harris," Malloy said of the results. "She does much better."
Overall, Harris also scored a bit better on likeability with just 47% viewing her unfavorably versus 52% for Trump. All told, the results may speak to an effective contrast driven perhaps less by platforms and more by personas.
More:Poll has Kamala Harris topping Donald Trump. A convention bounce or continuing trend?
"They're shiny, nice and new," Malloy said of the Harris-Walz ticket. "We know Trump, how he handles things. There's darkness. There's vengeance. There's nicknames. There's anger. And on this side it's new and, at least for now, it's working."
US military veteran offended by Trump election 'lie,' actions on Jan. 6
Husselbaugh, the former Trump voter, said he is backing Harris knowing it could cost him financially, perhaps a tax increase. It's not a hypothetical concern — it happened while Husselbaugh owned a software development company and President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act.
"Obamacare hurt me," he said. "It added costs to my bottom line. It's hard enough to be a small business owner without having additional expenses."
But he said he is willing to bear the burden of casting a vote on principle — one rooted in the oath he took as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. Husselbaugh said he was deeply offended by Trump's behavior following the 2020 election defeat, starting with a call in which he pressed Georgia officials to find him more votes.
"He came across to me as this guy is using the power of the office of President of the United States to lean on them, bring the full weight of that office down on them, to negotiate as if this is a negotiation," he said. "Yeah, you might be able to do that in business but that's not how this works. The votes are the votes ... and you have to respect that."
Days later, he watched the violence on Capitol Hill and concluded Trump had unforgivably violated his oath of office rather than to "honorably concede" and peacefully transfer power.
"He started spinning this lie, and I still see it as a lie, about the election having been stolen. He did a tremendous amount of damage to the country," said Husselbaugh, who is now speaking out through Republican Voters Against Trump. "I feel strongly about that oath I took and I will honor that oath. And the day he tried to overturn that election is the day he became a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States."
Another ex-GOP voter: Trump demeanor falls far short of standard set by American political icons
Across the erstwhile swing Interstate 4 corridor, Melanie Barton-Gauss has come to a similar conclusion.
Barton-Gauss is a former Orange County English and music teacher who now lives in Melbourne, where she writes historical-based fiction. Her research into the country's Founding Fathers has magnified her disappointment with Trump's demeanor.
For example, Barton-Gauss notes, George Washington went to "great pains to monitor his own behavior" and "present himself as a gentleman" in governing the new republic. Subsequent leaders, from Abraham Lincoln to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Ronald Reagan, followed that example. But not, she said, Trump.
"It's trash-talking, name-calling, mocking. I don't understand how that's OK, how people just brush that off and act as if it doesn't bother them," she said. "And it hasn't changed at all. It's the same old, same old, same old behavior over and over again. With the same gripes, the same complaints. People are tired of the nastiness and negativity."
Barton-Gauss grew up in a household with parents who were "total Republicans" and considered herself a "Reagan kid."
But she left the party when, Barton-Gauss said, the MAGA movement preached theocracy and the Trump administration adopted a callous approach to the COVID-19 pandemic she said cost lives unnecessarily — plus the former president's careless possession and handling of classified documents.
She said she was also particularly "disgusted" by the Jan. 6 "coup attempt" and subsequent efforts by Trump and his allies to "dismiss" and "minimize" the violence.
"I gave Trump a chance in 2016 even though I was really hesitant. I cast my vote for him anyway and then I regretted it," Barton-Gauss said. "I wish I hadn't."
Trump still holds sway over base, and has won over independents, too
Despite the turnaround in the 2024 election polling, the Trump-Harris contest remains a tight race with an outcome that is far from certain. Harris' lead in numerous polls is within the margin of error, and Trump still has several paths to the required 270 electoral votes.
The reason is that he still holds significant sway over wide swaths of the American electorate.
As she waited to board a shuttle ride to the grounds of Trump National Doral for a July 9 MAGA rally, one fan proudly sported her MAGA cap and apparel.
"I'm a Trump supporter," said Lisa, who asked that her last name not be published. "I believe he is the best president we've ever had."
Lisa decried the "mess we're in" because of the Biden administration, citing spiraling inflation that has spiked consumer prices, millions of immigrants crossing the U.S. southern border in what she said are unsustainable numbers that risk crime and national security, and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Yes, there are people who refuse to support Trump despite the Biden-Harris' administration's failings, but she said it is because they have lost their ability to reason.
"Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing," she said. "People hate Trump so much they will put anybody in there instead of voting for somebody that really loves this country."
But she believes Trump will win anyway because enough independent voters, as she once was, will ultimately cast their vote for him.
"I was an independent voter all my life. I voted for Trump the first time as an independent voter," she said. "Then I was forced to switch to the Republican Party because I will never ever, ever, ever vote for a Democrat again, ever."
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editoratThe Palm Beach Post, part of theUSA TODAY Florida Network.You can reach him atafins@pbpost.com.Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
