Why this anti-choice independent voter doesn't believe Trump is 'pro-life' — and supports Biden instead

^{Polarized is a weekly series featuring Americans from all 50 states sharing their views on the 2020 elections. Click here if you would like to be a part of this project}

Mary Kirby is about as much of an independent as they come.

A 67-year-old grandmother from Helena, Montana, Kirby says in a recent interview that she typically leans to the left on social issues, and to the right when it comes to fiscal policies.

She’s voted for Democrats, Republicans, and, in 2016, Kirby even cast a ballot for Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate who ran as an independent and picked up 3 per cent of the vote.

“I really hate the division in this country where we can’t even talk to each other anymore. We can’t even talk in my family about politics because everyone gets all up in arms, and we’re always painting the other guy with a broad brush,” she says. “That concerns me, because when you start labelling people, you start dehumanizing them – and then it suddenly becomes very easy to go further than that.”

As she is above the age of 65 and has diabetes and asthma, Kirby says she’s been continuing to follow the 2020 campaign trail as much as she can while constantly working to protect herself from Covid-19.

She has been practising social distancing measures and avoiding public events and gatherings so as not to risk her health – and she feels frustrated by the way Donald Trump’s administration has handled the coronavirus pandemic.

“I want to see that Covid-19 gets taken care of,” Kirby says, adding: “I haven’t seen much leadership out of Trump. It seems like his people are more concerned with their own economic health than the public’s personal health.”

open image in gallery

Kirby believes the president calling the virus a “hoax” when it first began sweeping through the country, refusing to wear a mask at multiple public events and sowing confusion about the severity of the outbreak contributed to a culture of selfishness surrounding the pandemic in the United States.

“You know, with all of these people screaming, ‘I don’t want to wear a mask!’ We really need to be more passionate and more concerned about our fellow citizens, and not be so selfish and self-centered,” she says. “It seems like we’re kind of going in that direction in this country for a lot of people.”

At this point, Kirby says there’s virtually no way she’s casting her ballot for the Republican incumbent come November.

However, as someone who describes herself as a “pro-life” independent, Kirby did not want to support any progressive candidates calling for expanded access to women’s reproductive rights. She says she wishes abortion access was “more restricted” in the US, which none of the more than 25 major Democratic candidates who launched presidential bids this election season would support.

But then came the former vice president, Joe Biden, one of the last candidates to throw his hat in the ring.

Though the Biden is pro-choice, he has previously described himself as personally opposed to abortion and supported restricting federal funding of abortions for decades – until his 2020 presidential campaign.

That’s enough for Kirby, who says Biden’s honesty on the issue is an attractive quality for her as a voter.

Click here to read more of The Independent’s series, Polarized: Voices From Across America

“I’m comforted by the fact that he’s personally pro-life – that’s what he said at one point in time, anyway, that because he’s Catholic, he’s personally pro-life but he’s not going to try and put his religious beliefs on other people,” she says. “I’d like to see it be more restricted, but at the moment it’s the law of the land. It’s like a lot of other things I believe that aren’t necessarily illegal.”

Trump, on the other hand, “doesn’t stand for anything” when it comes to women’s reproductive rights, Kirby says.

“I don’t like Trump, and I don’t believe him for a minute that he’s pro-life. I believe he’s an opportunist – I’ll put it that way,” she says. “He’ll say what you want to hear, and I think there’s a lot of people getting fooled by that, and it’s sad. As a person, he is disgusting to me.”

In Montana, a moderately Republican state that typically goes to the GOP but went blue for the former president Bill Clinton in 1992, every vote cast by independent voters is seen as even more crucial than ever before.

Though she’s an independent voter, Montana conducts open primaries, so Kirby decided to mail-in a ballot supporting the former vice president earlier this year.

“I voted for Joe Biden, I’ve always kind of liked him — he does have a tendency to put his foot in his mouth, but on the whole, I pretty much agree with his politics for the most part,” she says. “I am pro-life, so that’s where we disagree … but I have a very strong belief system that people should be honest, and that they should not be doing stuff like Trump has been doing in the past.”

I ask Kirby if there’s anything Trump could do to earn her vote – or, on the other hand, if Biden is capable of losing her support, either by choosing a vice president too far to the left or finding himself at the heart of some unseen controversy before Election Day.

“No,” she responds without a second of hesitation, “because I just can’t stand Trump. So I’m almost more of an anti-Trump voter.”

“Getting Trump out is my top priority,” she adds. “I think he’s done so much damage to our standing in the world, and he’s just not presidential at all. He’s a liar all the time, as far as I’m concerned. How can you trust someone who lies all the time?”