Meet One of the Voters Who Cast His Ballot for Donald Trump
He says he believes Trump will be good for the economy.
— -- Alan Hedrick, a 29-year-old Donald Trump supporter, is used to people making assumptions about him.
“I’ve had someone say that I’m an uneducated white male, from the South. I’m not any of those things," Hedrick said. “It’s troubling when you have your friends say, ‘I can’t believe you would vote for a racist.' I go, ‘Well, I don’t view him as being a racist."
The grandson of Polish and Austrian immigrants on his father’s side, with a mother who immigrated from Panama, Hedrick was raised in Colorado in what he describes as an “upper-middle class” suburb. His mother is Catholic. His father is Jewish. Hedrick self-identifies as “both."
“On my block, we were kind of the Hispanic family. We had someone who was African-American next door, Vietnamese two blocks up, you had a Mexican family across the way,” he recalled. “It wasn’t about race, it wasn’t about religion, it was about socioeconomic class.”
Hedrick’s support for Trump is rooted in his belief that the real estate mogul can apply his business acumen to secure and grow the American economy. For this young New York city dweller, who also works in real estate and aspires to one day start his own business, the Republican candidate’s promise to create more jobs is particularly attractive.
Hedrick graduated from college in 2008. His very first internship at a financial firm ended abruptly as the market crashed and he, along with his fellow interns and others, were laid off.
“It’s terrifying -- thinking about the fact that you have all this student loan debt and there’s no jobs, no one’s hiring, the housing market collapsed,” he said. “I’m tired of talking about race, I’m tired of talking about the better gender. Let’s talk about how do we put money in people’s pockets and that’s where the conversation needs to be.”
Trump may have won the New York State Republican primary with a resounding 35-point victory and more than 60 percent of the vote, yet he lost Manhattan -– where Hedrick resides -- to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. Hedrick himself was an early Rand Paul backer. He admits he’s struggled to square some of Trump’s statements about Muslims and Mexicans with the man he believes will be an effective leader, saying he tries to “look past the rhetoric” and focus on “the actual policies” Trump is proposing.
“I will tell you he doesn’t have all the answers,” Hedrick conceded. “I think his genius is bringing in other people that know more about something than he does. Look at his corporations, you look at his businesses. He brings in very intelligent people and he thinks outside the box when bringing on someone."
There is a frustration with the status quo, including with his own party leadership, informing and now elevating Hedrick's support for Trump.
“We’ve seen the last eight years Congress not do anything. Granted, part of that’s the Republicans' fault, a lot of it is the Democrats’ fault as well,” said Hedrick. “I believe Donald Trump is a great negotiator. He’s negotiated deals and he can get people to the table talking. The fact that Republicans can’t come together to work with the president on finding a Supreme Court nominee is mind-blowing. ... We can’t be the party of obstructionists. We can’t be the party of ‘no.’”
Hedrick may stand alone among his mostly Democratic friends, but come November, he says his vote for Donald Trump will be based more in realism than idealism.
“I want to make sure people know there’s never going to be a perfect candidate,” he said. “I don’t think Donald Trump is my ideal candidate, but I think he’s the one that’s going to get the job done.”
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