For Mr. Ulrich, a decorated Vietnam veteran who worked for more than three decades at the local General Electric plant, the stakes could not be higher. He sees Mr. Trump as
He is not alone in his sense of urgency. The county board of elections has sent out more than 45,000 requested mail-in ballots, 10,000 more than in the primary. And requests are still pouring in. The deadline to ask for a mail-in ballot does not arrive for more than three weeks.
Mr. Hawes agrees with his stepfather about the stakes. Like most other Trump backers, he believes his man will prevail. But he is pessimistic all the same.
“Right now we’re at a pivotal point,” he said. Now out of the service on disability, his military career curtailed by injuries in paratrooper training, Mr. Hawes holds strongly to his identity as a veteran, talking with veterans’ groups and keeping up with retired service members over Facebook. Many of them see a Biden win, he said, as the acceleration of a slow-moving “Marxist, socialist” coup that is being kept alive by left-wing protesters. “It’s scary,” he said, “it really is.”
Still, while father and son both fear catastrophe if their preferred candidate loses, neither is particularly hopeful about what lies ahead even if their candidate were to win.
