These women generally loathe Trump. When I ask why they rate him as doing a bad job, they rarely pull their punches. He’s a “narcissist,” “bully,” and “racist”; he’s “unprofessional” and “embarrassing” as well. They are dismayed by the chaos, the tweeting, his general nastiness and divisiveness. They thought that the bombastic showman they saw on the campaign trail in 2016 was an act and that Trump would rise to the dignity of the presidency. They agree—with a mixture of horror and bemusement—that such a transformation never took place.Anyone watching this part of one of my focus groups would assume that virtually none of these women would vote for Trump again. But when I ask who they plan to vote for in November, the results are mixed. Typically, some are voting for, or leaning toward, Biden; some are voting for, or leaning toward, Trump; and many are still undecided.Some of the women who are definitely voting for Biden had immediate buyer’s remorse after voting for Trump in 2016. One of them memorably told me that she “would vote for a dog over Donald Trump.” Many women who fall into this category say that if they had it to do over, knowing what they know now, they would have voted for Hillary Clinton.But most of these women say their thinking evolved over time as they weighed the foibles of the president against sins of the elites, whom they viscerally distrust. For instance, during the focus groups I convened throughout Trump’s impeachment, few of the women had anything nice to say about Trump’s actions. But their real contempt was reserved for Democrats and “the media,” whom they viewed as unnecessarily adversarial to Trump. And the plain fact is that they were unwilling to give much weight to an argument about the rule of law and abuse of power, because it didn’t have a visible impact on their lives.But the pandemic has. In fact, it has created a noticeable shift in support away from Trump and toward Biden.

Source: Why People Who Hate Trump Stick With Him – The Atlantic