Four days until vote
Friday marks four days until Americans vote in federal and state races on Nov. 8. All year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has brought you the key moments in those races, and it will continue to cover the campaign's main events, examine the issues and analyze candidates' finance reports until the last ballot is counted. You can follow the developments on the AJC's politics page at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/georgia-politics/ and in the Political Insider blog at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/political-insider/. You can also track our coverage on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GAPoliticsNews or Facebook at https://facebook.com/gapoliticsnewsnow.
A Trump voter in Decatur. Hillary fans in rock-ribbed red country. This election is telling us a lot about our country, ourselves and our neighbors.
For instance, Millicent Abbey wants Donald Trump to be America’s next president.
No, she’s actually praying that he will be.
“God bless Trump to win,” Abbey said. “I’ve only prayed twice in my life that a president would become our leader. Once for Obama and now for Donald Trump.”
If the fact that Abbey prayed for Barack Obama and Trump doesn’t make her stand out, consider this: Abbey is African-American and lives in the tony, liberal haven of Decatur. Her brick house in the city’s Oakhurst neighborhood, built in 1947, features nearly half a dozen Trump campaign signs. An unscientific survey of the small DeKalb County city found no others.
Abbey said she gave up on Obama in his first term as president. She realizes she’s unusual, doesn’t care and doesn’t care who knows it.
“I happen to be black. I vote my interest. I’ve always voted Democrat, but they’re full of crap, Obama on down,” she said. “To hear them speaking, it’s annoying. They think the American people are stupid.”
This year, she said, she is “off the plantation.”
“I’m going with the person who I feel will make this country better for me, my children, my grandchildren, and that’s Donald Trump,” Abbey said. “Not Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t give a damn about Americans. She wants to sit in that White House.”
In Oakhurst, Trump finished second to Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio in the March presidential primary, 231 votes to 121. But Clinton topped Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders with 632 votes to 382 votes.
All around her, Abbey said, are misguided neighbors.
“They’re all Bernie-slash-Hillary voters,” she said. “They were Bernie people. I’m shocked at these people. They’re homeowners in expensive homes and you’re going for socialism? Really?”
She said she’s seen their confused faces.
“I see them stop and point and take pictures,” Abbey said. “It doesn’t bother me.”
People ‘give me the finger’
Jill Clayton-Jesse finds herself a lone Hillary Clinton supporter in Trump Country.
“I can’t get away from them,” she said. “I’m surrounded by signs in yards and everything. I just kind of drive by and shake my head at them and think, ‘Idiots.’ ”
She displays a yard sign in her Northlake neighborhood and sports a bumper sticker on her car, both of which have elicited unwanted attention.
“I’ve had people drive by and give me the finger,” she said, adding that someone once wrote “TRUMP 2016” on her car window in chalk. “If I go to community meetings, I’m surrounded by them. They give me a hard time. They don’t understand why I’m an older white Christian lady and I’m not voting for Trump.”
She eagerly engages her detractors.
“You know what I say? I tell them: ‘Putting all politics aside, putting aside that she has years and years of experience, and she’s a brilliant woman, and is married to Bill Clinton, my favorite president of all time, (Trump) is a real estate agent. I have a real estate license. Maybe I should run for president,” said Clayton-Jesse, who works as a corporate psychologist. “She has proven to be a woman who is capable of forgiveness and unconditional love, and those are two qualities I’d rather have in a president.”
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