Billboards featuring everyday Republicans and independents who are so turned off by President Donald Trump that they’re voting for Democrat Joe Biden have come to Florida.
The campaign starts Monday in Republican parts of the state and the important swing territory of the Interstate 4 corridor from Tampa to Orlando — areas where organizers figure they have the most potential to help influence voters in the final weeks of the campaign.
Republican Voters Against Trump, which has been waging a digital and television campaign with people explaining why they can’t vote for their party’s presidential nominee, has a $3 million billboard campaign that has already started in other battleground states, of Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
The group said it would have 100 billboards in Florida with brief, direct messages showing Republicans that people like them are voting for Biden.
“I’m a conservative. I’m an Army veteran. I’m voting Biden,” proclaims the one featuring Robert Harding of Lake Worth. Jim Zaenglein of Fernandina Beach explains that “I’m a Republican. I’m a veteran. I’m voting Biden.” And Richard Glomb from DeLand states “I’m a Republican. I’m a Christian. I’m voting for Biden.”
The signs will be in Fort Myers, Lakeland, Melbourne, Orlando, Tampa, Titusville, north of Daytona Beach and between Fort Pierce and Vero Beach.
Amplifying their views in phone interviews, several of the five people featured on the billboards expressed strongly negative views about the president. For most, voting for a Democrat is a big deal, something they’ve done once or twice — if ever — in their lifetimes.
“Trump is not fit. He doesn’t conduct himself in a manner that I think a president should. He lies. He doesn’t have any integrity. He’s a womanizer and I consider him a racist. I think there’s a spectrum of racism, and he’s toward the extreme,” Zaenglein said.
He said Trump “has interests, obviously in Russia,” and has “alienated our allies and cozied up to our enemies.” And, Zaenglein said, “his holding the Bible in front of that church was bad, disgusting.” That happened after Trump had peaceful protesters forcibly removed from an area outside the White House so he could hold the photo op with the Bible.
Zaenglein, 59, a registered Republican and radiologist who served 10 years as an active duty Army doctor, said he cast a protest vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson in 2016.
Harding, 67, is a registered no party affiliation voter. He said he voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 for one central reason: Trump was the Republican nominee.
“He’s a subversive. He’s a real danger to the future of the country, the present and the future,” he said.
Harding met the future president years ago as one of several contractors who installed the gold leaf in the ballroom at the Palm Beach estate Trump turned into the Mar-a-Lago Club. (Other builders at the time warned him that Trump had a reputation for not paying his bills, but Harding said he got what he was owed. “There was no issue getting paid.”)
Separate from the Republicans Against Trump effort, Harding and his girlfriend wrote a song, “Ode to the Bloated Zero,” about Trump and posted it to YouTube. One of the lyrics describes the president as “A powder-puff bully.”
Glomb, 84, a lifelong Republican, has voted for only one Democrat for president: John F. Kennedy in 1960. In 2016, he wrote in the name of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
He said he has some “trepidation” about the policies Biden would implement. But said Trump gives him no choice.
“The guy is a liar. I can abide a lot of things, but I cannot abide the fact that he lies,” he said. He also thinks the president is not well. “I may be wrong, but I think if this man had to go through psychological tests, I think they would find him in need of some help.”
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics
