CNN
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My mother often told me that the only way to learn was to listen. I’m sure that was a polite way of shutting me up, but it’s good advice, even if her ultimate goal was to make the King kitchen a little quieter.
Listening is a lost art in our politics. And too often, it’s lost in our political reporting.
Everyday Americans are ignored, given a quote or a brief statement here and there, while most of the attention is focused on the increasingly loud partisan bombast.
Don’t get me wrong: We need to report on what politicians say, and what their ads say, and we need to fact-check everything.
But our All Over the Map project is an attempt to shift the balance a bit: to listen and to learn.
We’ve been working on this for 10 months now and we’ve learned so much from constituents who are literally on every side of the aisle.
As the presidential debate approaches on Thursday and a crucial election nears its final stages, I invite you to join us in listening, beyond the television and written reports.
“All Over the Map” debuts today on CNN Audio in podcast format to tell more of voter stories – hear people wrestle with their choices and talk about the life experiences that shaped their politics.
The CNN series, which began in Iowa and New Hampshire at the start of primary season, is now reaching voters in South Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. My mom was right: When you listen, you learn.
My biggest takeaway so far is that yes, there are big differences in a polarized America, but voters are not only willing but eager to have the tough conversations that many politicians avoid. Most voters are ready to discuss compromises that politicians refuse to make. Economic anxiety is easy to spot, as is skepticism about candidates.
In the first episode, Nikki Haley supporters share their thoughts and frustrations with the two presidential candidates. After the Republican primary ended in March, the former South Carolina governor has a following that could sway the outcome of the election, so we wanted to visit with some Haley supporters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania ahead of the first Biden vs. Trump debate.
We meet Linda Rooney and Michael Pesce and hear the anguish of self-described Reagan Republicans who want to take back their party from Trump, but feel the thought of voting for the reelection of a Democratic president goes against their party’s DNA.
It’s interesting to hear from voters who started in the same place but go in different directions when they stare at the Trump vs. Biden crossroads.
Rooney, a native of Media, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, speaks to a theme we hear often on our travels: She voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
“Honestly, it’s sad that we only have these two options,” Rooney said. “I’m tired of celebrities being involved in politics. I don’t like Trump, but I have to say, personally, we were better off when he was president. I don’t like that he’s unreliable in a way. I don’t know what he’s going to do next. I just want a normal person. I mean, I want a normal person. I don’t want a celebrity, and I don’t have any confidence in Biden. So I feel like I don’t have a choice.”
But she has promised to vote, and she understands that the winner in Pennsylvania tends to be the winner nationally.
Pesce is part of the generation that transformed American politics 40 years ago and is also part of the suburbanization generation that is reshaping politics today.
He lives in Doylestown in competitive Bucks County and, like Looney, voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
“I became a Republican at 18 because of Ronald Reagan,” said Pesce, a former Coast Guardsman who works in a meatpacking plant. “I’m a Reaganite Republican. I love that conservatism. I love that vision of America. His ‘America First’. We are the leader of the free world. We are the military leader of the world. This is what we believe. And I was like, yeah, this is what I want to be.”
We then travel to one of America’s newest presidential battlegrounds and meet two voters whose 2020 victory for Biden in Georgia upended the map and will shape choices and conversations in 2024.
And we explore the cracks in the Biden coalition that are making his reelection calculations and maps so difficult. A Palestinian-American law student in Dearborn, Michigan, speaks for the anger of young and Arab-American voters over Biden’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza. A black entrepreneur in Milwaukee shares his perspective on the economic decline of a neighborhood that once offered a path to the middle class through factory jobs.
We invite you to join us on our journey. After just a few minutes of talking to a voter, you may not feel a connection with someone who lives far away and has a vastly different life experience and political views. But by the end, something will feel like it connects with you or stimulates your own thinking about an issue or candidate.
With just over four months until Election Day, we know the race is close, third-party candidates are complicating state-by-state calculations, and the winner will be decided by voters who don’t particularly like either major party candidate. Maybe you fall into this group. Maybe you’re so sure of your choice that you can’t understand the frustration. We hope you’ll take a moment to share with us, listen, and learn.
Episode 1 All Over the Map Podcast Special It’s now available wherever you listen to podcasts as part of The Assignment with Audie Cornish.
