How swing voters could swing – to Trump | McClatchy Washington Bureau

They are the people who decide elections, shun partisan labels or loyalty, and swing back and forth between the major political parties from election to election. And they have a problem.

They can’t stand either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

With Clinton, they really don’t like the way she used private email as secretary of state in defiance of the rules, reinforcing their view that the presumptive Democratic nominee is a smug, arrogant insider. With Trump, who clinched the Republican nomination this week, they see a self-absorbed loudmouth unfit to fill the world’s most powerful job.

Yet interviews with dozens of swing voters in the pivotal corridor between Tampa Bay and Orlando also revealed a potential clue to how they could go this fall in battleground Florida, if not everywhere. The key: It may end up being easier for a candidate to change behavior than résumé. And that’s why there is a potential for them to swing to Trump.

If swing voters are important anywhere, they’re particularly crucial in this central part of the Sunshine State. Florida has voted for the presidential winner in every election but one – 1992 – since 1964. So has Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa and its suburbs and was at the center of these interviews by McClatchy with The Bradenton Herald.

Katherine Reynolds, a dance teacher from Inverness, is among the undecided.

She saw President Barack Obama eight years ago as an important harbinger of change. “We needed new blood, and I thought perhaps as the first black president, we’d get a fair share in the economy for everybody,” she said. “We didn’t.”

She voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. This time, no one moves her. “I won’t say Trump is my favorite person,” she said. But Clinton, she said, is “devious.”

Trump, at least, seems to connect comfortably with ordinary people, she said. “He has a good chance of helping the working class,” Reynolds figured. She’ll keep listening, keep watching.

Others throughout the region echoed her quandary.

“A lot comes down to character,” said Cassandra Holbrook, a Manatee Technical College student. At the moment she finds Trump “a little too self-important,” but she has serious questions about Clinton’s past.

“There’s a distrust factor with Clinton, but Trump’s rhetoric worries me,” said Henry Scarfo, a Lake Mary retiree who backed Obama in 2008 and then Romney.

One thing that could send him Trump’s way is a signal from Republican leaders, notably House Speaker Paul Ryan, that Trump is OK.

The swing voters are an unusually hard bloc to handicap, because the 2016 election is different from any other in recent times.

One survey in battlegrounds Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Ohio finds that swing voters are 21 percent of the electorate and voted for different parties in the last two elections, 2012 and 2014.

They largely call themselves independents (84 percent), have less college education than the broader electorate and include fewer African-Americans, the same percentage of Latinos and fewer liberals, according to the poll for the Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate Democratic-leaning research group. They are mostly concerned about the economy, and are more concerned with growth than fairness.

“Whether it comes down to policy or personality is yet to be determined,” said Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, vice president at the Reputation Institute, a research group that studies public images. This could be the rare election where personality will make the difference, and so far Trump has done well selling his brand.

Fifty-four percent of voters nationwide view Clinton negatively, according to last week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Trump is seen that way by 58 percent, though that’s down from 65 percent in April, as he started trying to paint himself as a more sensible, committed Republican and less of an outspoken maverick. That 7-point improvement suggested Trump has the potential to improve his standing further.

Rich Moralis, a retiree from Dunedin, has voted for both Republicans and Democrats for president. He backed Obama in 2012, but Clinton annoys him. “She’s a liar,” he said.

Moralis is Hispanic, and is well aware that Trump insulted Mexicans last year by suggesting many immigrants were rapists. “Trump is kind of racial,” Moralis said, but that could be outweighed by his outsider status.

Duane Pike, a retiree from Land O’ Lakes, saw good and bad in Trump. “Do I like the guy personally? No,” he said. “But I like his candor, and he’s gotten the average American to come out and vote.”

A big barrier to potential Clinton support, and perhaps one that limits her upside, is her email turmoil.

The FBI is looking into whether the former secretary of state’s use of a private server put government secrets at risk. On Wednesday, the State Department inspector general found that she had not sought permission to use the private service. Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon noted there has been “no evidence of any successful breach of the secretary’s server.”

To Matthew Durshimer, a civil engineer from Tampa, there seems to be a double standard at work for Clinton. He noted one email chain where Clinton had requested a secure fax to be sent on a non-secure line.

“If my fiancée did something like that she’d be fired,” Durshimer said.

Something else in the Clinton character troubles these voters.

She seems cold, even ruthlessly ambitious, willing to do anything to get elected, they say. They’ve watched her bend this year on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade pact she once supported but now opposes, and on the minimum wage. Clinton had said it was a matter for states, but now she backs a higher national minimum.

Adelmarie Bones, an environmental scientist from Tampa, wants to see more genuine feeling for others in Clinton. “I see a passion to become president,” she said, but little else.

Bones wants Clinton to emulate her friends and her. “My dream is to be a partner in my firm, and be able to help others,” she said. Her vote this fall? “I’m very conflicted. I’m very disappointed in both candidates.” She’ll decide after “reading a lot.”

Trump’s challenge is different from Clinton’s.

She can’t erase the email controversy or her past record. But he can change his behavior and appear more statesmanlike, less bombastic. The same candor that made him a popular outlier is a risk with swing voters, who tend to study candidates carefully. Clearly, his mouth and the perception that he lacks gravitas and commitment hold him back with the general election holdouts.

“He still doesn’t think before he speaks,” said Richard Steely, a military contractor from Tampa.

Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks continue to sting, a hurdle for those who might have easily backed his candidacy.

“His mouth will get us into a war,” said Ron Friese, a retail executive from Bradenton. “He has no self-control.”

Friese has voted Republican and Democratic in previous presidential elections. Undecided about his 2016 vote, Friese is thinking strategically: If Trump wins, Friese wants a Democratic-led Congress to help keep Trump in check.

Like so many swing voters, he’ll watch and wait.

Johnathan Cray, a Manatee Technical College student, is not enthusiastic about Clinton, saying, “There’s something about her.” He looks at Trump and appreciates his tough stand on controlling the U.S.-Mexican border and the idea that his business background will help him manage the government.

Cray will decide after “following the campaign more closely and learning more about everyone’s agenda. Right now, I just don’t know.”