The 2024 election was framed as a contest between a “prosecutor and a convicted felon.” Donald Trump’s Election Day victory will have far-reaching implications for the millions of people like him who have felony convictions. But the vast majority of people serving time in state and federal prisons did not get to vote.
Ahead of the election, The Marshall Project asked thousands of incarcerated people about their political beliefs and who they’d choose for president if given the chance. After the election, we asked people in state and federal prisons to reflect on what Election Day felt like behind bars.
For some, Nov. 5 was like any other day. Others navigated racial tensions among their fellow prisoners. Many shared their anxieties about the expense of everyday items, hopeful the next president would ease their economic burden. Still others expressed dismay that the country won’t be led by the first woman president and worried Trump would be a dictator.
These conversations, via telephone calls and prison email systems, have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Bruce Altenburger
A 35-year-old White man incarcerated at U.S. Penitentiary Allenwood in Pennsylvania.
I like Trump as an entertainer.
I just don’t understand. I got seven years for having a gun. You put me in federal prison for having a gun as a convicted felon. They’re going to give this convicted felon the nuclear codes? It just shows what money can do for you.
A lot of my homies like Trump! I’m not talking about White guys from the suburbs. I’m talking about Puerto Rican dudes, Black dudes from North Philly, from South Philly. We all felt like he kept it real. He’s also one of us; he’s a convicted felon.
They feel that when Trump was president before, when he was running the country — there was more money, a better economy. And they’re worried that when [President Joe] Biden took over, it all went to hell.
Joseph Sabir
A 37-year-old Black man at Washington State Penitentiary in Washington.
I didn’t really talk to any fellow incarcerated individuals about the election. But I did talk with a corrections officer who I know from previous conversations does not like Donald Trump. That is a rarity among COs, who are almost all Republican-leaning. America is too misogynistic to elect a woman, I explained, and still racist enough not to elect a Black woman.
Once Joe Biden exited the race and the assassination attempts on Trump happened, I think Trump sealed the deal. It would’ve been interesting to see Kamala Harris lead the country.
One thing everyone was talking about was the fact that a 34-time convicted felon defeated a prosecutor in a landslide and is now president-elect. That amused every single convict behind these walls.
Jason Scott Morgan
A 45-year-old White man at the Federal Correctional Institution-Lewisburg in Pennsylvania.
Most people are excited because in [the federal Bureau of Prisons system] — in every facility I’ve ever been, especially among staff — Trump is king. I remember at USP Hazelton, they hated Biden so much that in the foyer they had Biden’s picture hanging sideways, like “Crooked Joe.”
The majority of prisoners, I think, are Trump supporters, but there are some very devastated people, too. In the chow hall someone really had a breakdown, like it’s going to be the end of the Constitution, and it’s the end of our country.
Some people are really taking the rhetoric to heart. Sitting in the TV room, watching election results, a guy in there said, “He’s a fascist!”
I thought I would hear more people picking on each other. I think people are just ready to move on. We don’t even get to vote.
The biggest issue in prison is money. Our commissary has shot through the roof: Things like ramen noodles, they were 25 cents, now they’re $1. Things are doubling and tripling in price.
We feel it when we have to get the things that we need, when our families can’t send us as much money, because their money doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Adrian Torres
A 49-year-old Latino man at Mule Creek State Prison in California.
I can’t believe the numbers.
The feeling in the prison was somber. At least one person can’t believe why people would vote in a “dictator.”
People are going to become bolder about the racism, about the discrimination. Because they’ve been hiding. Now they’re going to be able to say: “Look at my president! He can say certain things and get away with it. I can do it too.” That scares me.
My family and loved ones are going to be affected on the outside. Because if money gets more difficult — travel, gas — all these things make a big difference to my sanity. If my family is stressed, I’m stressed. And maybe even double-stressed, because I can’t help them.
Jodi David
A 39-year-old White woman incarcerated in Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Oklahoma.
For most, Election Day is the same as any other day here. There is a common attitude that whatever is going on out there has no bearing in here. That could not be further from the truth. Today’s issues become tomorrow’s laws. And everyone at this facility will go home one day.
Misinformation is mostly the information spread here. Someone could hear two seconds of a broadcast that had the word “transgender” in it, and 20 people later, via what we call “inmate.com,” the story is, “Kamala is fighting for state prisons to provide transition surgery.”
Even if we had access to more news outlets, sometimes people only hear what they want.
Republican or not, I can admit Trump is an idiot. He doesn’t pretend to be anything else. And somehow that may have seemed safer than the unknown of Kamala. The first woman president and a woman of color was just too much in a time of great uncertainty at home and abroad. It was also bad timing with our economy. It may have been a different outcome had we been more stable.
I don’t think Trump is going to sink the country, and I pray our system of checks and balances, made for this exact purpose, constrains him. We made it through his first four years. We will make it through this.
Joshua Turner
A 42-year-old Native American man at Alexander Correctional Institute in North Carolina.
We are all in single cells. To be heard and to hear, we have to stand at the solid steel doors and yell through the cracks or door jambs. I began by asking my neighbors, “What’s going on today?”
On Election Day I was told that the guards were being extra polite. They’re not making as many as normal walk-throughs.
I asked the general block: “Does anybody know how the voting is?”
A few of us who are Harris supporters began a hopeful conversation, saying we all agree she is leading but barely. We made some negative Trump remarks and laughed until the Trump supporters got angry. The tension instantly became thick as a London fog, so the political conversation ended. Everything went deathly quiet.
This prison had everybody locked in their cells by 4 p.m. We have no TV in our cells and no way but the radio to keep up with the voting.
Life in prison differs from life on the outside in that most prisoners “come alive” at night. So around 9 p.m. almost all 48 fellows in my dorm were fully alert and awake. Most don’t care about the actual politics, but for a chance to talk smack and cheer on an event to carry our lonely souls through another day.
Racial tensions exist but go unspoken.
My dorm seems to have a lot of Trump fans. As the votes came in, the banter became more aggressive and harsher.
Now that the news of the election is set in stone, it feels like the “winning” side has lost. I feel like the best team lost the championship game.
The staff are all happy and bouncing around being nice. That makes for a “good” day in prison — if there is such a thing. The guards even gave out all the extra food for breakfast and lunch. That is rare.
Some of the staff didn’t even come to work. They consider Mr. Trump’s win a “Trumpday,” like it’s a holiday.
The convicts that want to see Mr. Trump [as president] are all whooping and hollering and screaming Harris-fueled obscenities! I don’t get involved with the trash talk in politics, because it’s a quick way to end up fighting.
Lexie Handlang
A 37-year-old White transgender woman at the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri.
I’ve been in prison almost 11 years, and it seemed like more people were talking about this election than have ever talked about an election in here.
I was really wanting Kamala Harris to win. Trump’s prior history in office, and his dislike of LGBTQ folks — it was very concerning. I thought that people in here were going to feel the same, but they do not.
The majority of the folks that I have talked to are excited about having a convicted felon as a president.
It’s really hard for us to fact check anything in here. Most of the time, when people call their family, it’s not like (they ask), “Hey, can you fact check this for me? Or can you look this up?”
A lot of them are calling to get money, or they’re wanting to talk to their kids. So when rumors float around, they just believe it. There’s nothing to disprove it.
Matthew Safrit
A 34-year-old White man at the Pamlico Correctional Institution in North Carolina.
We are flooded by Republican talk radio. We might get NPR as a counter-narrative. But the majority is conservative talk radio. We have newspapers, but it seems like after COVID, I’ve not seen as many floating around.
We are in a system where we see things that aren’t right happen on a daily basis. We get treated like shit. We see officers, judges and attorneys all lie to us. And so you come into prison, and Republican talk radio is calling out a corrupt establishment and blaming it all on Democrats. So they are channeling that discontent a lot of prisoners already have, and they are able to pull them over to their political views.
Quentin Taylor
A 33-year-old Black man incarcerated in Pendleton Correctional Facility in Indiana.
I look at politics a lot different now since I’m a little older and incarcerated. I was 18 years old when I got locked up. I’m now 33 years old, and I hate that I never had a chance to vote! It really makes you feel like you’re not even a real part of America.
I think a lot of people in here are shocked, because people didn’t think Trump would win again. I hear a lot of anger and other emotions.
I don’t have any issue with Trump. I’m just wondering what now? What’s next for our country?
Learn about how The Marshall Project is covering the 2024 election’s criminal justice and immigration issues across the U.S. and in our local news teams’ cities.
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