Jamiee Peterson has never voted in a "non-Trump America."

A registered Democrat in Colorado, Peterson was a 20-year-old junior at
the University of Colorado-Boulder when Donald Trump was elected in 2016.

"I was excited to vote in 2016 cause I thought no way he would win,"
Peterson told Newsweek in an interview.

She recalled that Election Night, watching the returns come in with her
college roommates and feeling scared and hopeless when they realized
Hillary Clinton was going to lose. "We drank a lot of wine after. We all
did not want Trump to win."

"It's been a steady decline in hopefulness since then," she said.

Liberals and Democrats of all stripes are remarking to each other in
group chats, dinner conversations and social media posts about the
familiar feeling of despair creeping in as Election Day nears. A
pit-in-the-stomach dread that has overtaken the joy and relief so many
felt after Kamala Harris replaced a faltering Joe Biden at the top of
the ticket this summer.

November 8, 2016 still rents space for free in the heads of many such
voters. The day that Clinton supporters believed the nation would elect
its first female president was the day that Trump would pull off the
biggest political upset in American history.

He would not only prove the polls and pundits wrong, but would also
shake the confidence of Democrats who knew — just knew — that someone
like Trump could not get elected, regardless of how flawed their
candidate might be.

But unlike that landmark election nearly a decade ago, Democrats have
something working in their favor this time around: their anxiety.

Clinton's ascent to the presidency was considered by many to be a
foregone conclusion eight years ago. Such a sure thing that the number
of registered voters who stayed home on Election Day was probably enough
to cost her the election.

This year, by contrast, no liberal in America thinks Kamala Harris has
things locked up. And that could help juice turnout where it's needed
most, from western Pennsylvania to the suburbs of Atlanta.

Joy Turns to Fear
The liberal "bedwetting," to use a term coined by Obama campaign manager
David Plouffe, has exhausted Emily Clemons.

A registered Democrat in New York who works in sales, Clemons, 28, told
Newsweek she's tired of seeing politics flood her Instagram feed, of
hearing about how close the race is when she turns on the radio, of
playing worst-case scenario with her friends.

And yet, Clemons said, "We can't stop worrying about it because so much
is at stake."

"I truly believe [Trump] will continue to undo some of the
constitutional rights and perpetuate a sense of fear, disrespect to
minority groups, and bring more instability to an already extremely
fragile and divided country," she said.

Peterson, from Colorado, echoed those concerns.

"I'm honestly just scared things will never go back to how they were,
having debates where the parties are professional, respectful and
actually care about the people they're representing," she said.

"It's become a whole spectacle and it's so polarized that it does scare
me how far back things can go in terms of policies I would've thought
would never be overturned."

"I don't feel optimistic about the election," she added. "As much as I
would like to think the Democrats will win, I really think the rage-bait
and fear mongering Trump creates has seized a lot of Americans and put a
lot of distrust in the whole election process as a whole."

Anna Holcombe, a lawyer and registered Democrat in New York, said she
felt more angry than dejected about the state of the race.

"The amount of people that claim to be sitting this one out, because
they dislike both candidates is not only scary, it is infuriating,"
Holcombe, 38, told Newsweek.

"I really try to understand people's reasoning for things based upon
their different lived experiences, even if I disagree. But to be faced
with the options we have and think 'nah, not for me' is honestly
disgraceful, and a dereliction of one's duty to their neighbors and
country."

Anger mixed with existential dread and anxiety is exactly the kind of
organizing principle that could fuel a massive turnout of the party's
base for Harris, said Steve Schier, a political scientist and author.

"That can be important in closely contested states," Schier told
Newsweek. "Combine that with voters' dislike of Trump and you have
powerful turnout motivations."

Fear is the biggest difference between the motivating factors for
Democrats and Republicans this cycle, according to Doug Gordon, the CEO
of UpShift Strategies, a left-leaning communications firm. It could be
that difference that decides an election that every political pundit
predicts will be won on the margins.

"Republicans might dislike – or even despise – Kamala Harris," Gordon
told Newsweek, but Democrats "flat out fear a second Donald Trump term."

"There is no question that fear, more than simple dislike, can be a real
motivator to vote," he said.

'Healthy Anxiety'
Since their collective traumatization in 2016, the Democratic base has
religiously showed up at the ballot box. They delivered a "blue wave" in
2018, ejected Trump in 2020 — when 85 percent of registered Democrats
who voted for a third party four years earlier pulled the lever for
Biden — and blunted a predicted "red wave" two years later.

In those midterm elections of 2022, a base of engaged, high-propensity
voters became an even more prominent fixture of Democratic politics
after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The hope for Democrats
is that those reliable voters, many of whom are women of all races and
classes, remain engaged enough to vote in November.

"The anti-MAGA coalition, which has fueled Democratic victories in 2018,
2020 and 2022, is going to vote in this election. [Mean]while Trump and
Republicans are depending on far more irregular voters," Gordon said.

"At this point of the race, I'd much rather be depending on reliable
voters than irregular voters."

Eric Schmeltzer, a Los Angeles-based political communications
consultant, also expressed cautious optimism that Democratic anxiety
could fuel a turnout surprise in Harris' favor.

"Everyone is scarred by 2016. I'm no exception," said Schmeltzer, who
also served as the former press secretary to Howard Dean and
Representative Jerry Nadler. "But what we also need to remember is that
since 2016, Democrats have competed and, in many cases, over-performed."

"Some of the anxiety that Democratic voters have felt in successive
elections has ultimately contributed to a string of solid victories,"
added Brad Bauman, principal at the Raben Group and the former executive
director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "Healthy anxiety that
turned into electoral success."

Still, Schmeltzer said, "victory isn't guaranteed this year."

He believes too many Democratic voters thought for "too long" that
Trump's legal troubles would be a bridge too far for independent and
moderate voters to consider sending the former president back to the
White House, especially as a convicted felon, and "that there just would
be no way that Trump would make it to Election Day."

But with the legal cases over Trump's refusal to accept defeat in 2020
in various states of flux, and the Stormy Daniels case that resulted in
a conviction having virtually no impact on the polls, Schmeltzer said
Democrats are coming to the realization that the election will come
down, as they always do, to which party is better at mobilizing their
base in the handful of states that matter.

"The closer the clock gets to midnight, the more and more you'll start
to see Democratic voters get scared, and that will rustle them up and
get them to work and turn out."

https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-liberal-anxiety-donald-trump-1967724