He’s just “Trump” in Winston County. He’s their guy. Not President Trump. Not Donald Trump. Just Trump.
Here, in one of the reddest counties in America, they love Trump now more than ever, figuratively wrapping their arms around the embattled president in a defiant clench despite the crisis engulfing the White House.
“I think he’s doing a good job,” said hairdresser Aundrea Frost. “The Democrats are railroading him. Makes me mad.”
In the chair at Razor's Edge while getting a haircut, Randall Colburn said, "Nobody wants to get him impeached that I've been talking to."
"Everybody's got jobs that wants to work," said Melissa Elliott at an auto repair shop. "If you don't want to work, that's your fault. Anybody who wants to work has a job and I like that.
Winston County, Alabama, loves Trump.
No place in Alabama voted more decisively for President Trump in 2016 than Winston County. And now that he's facing an impeachment inquiry, his supporters are standing strong.
They loved him in 2016 when the county gave him the nation's third-highest percentage of support at the polls. And they love him now, no matter about the impeachment inquiry brought by the "dang Democrats railroading him."
Yes, Frost knows that she gets a little fired up when it comes to talking about Trump. As she waited for customers at Razor's Edge in Haleyville – the rural county's largest city – she left that passion unchecked.
"What does it hurt to ask (Ukraine) to investigate?" Frost asked.
Her voice, and opinion, echoed throughout the county that backed Trump in 2016 with 89.5 percent of their vote. Trump's the victim here.
Winston County defines Trump’s base
In 2016, almost 9 out of every 10 Winston County voters marked their ballot for Trump. Only the tiny Texas panhandle counties of Wheeler and Roberts – whose combined voters were less than half of Winston County's 10,313 votes – had higher percentages.
AL.com visited Winston County last year to talk to voters about why they love Trump more than folks anywhere else in Alabama. On Thursday, AL.com made another visit last week as support grows for bringing impeachment charges against Trump for his phone call with the president of Ukraine.
Today the hilly, wooded county in north central Alabama, about an hour northwest of Birmingham, remains the base of support that Trump celebrates. And that's base with a capital B.
"I have a shirt that says, 'If you don't like Trump, you probably won't like me,'" said Melissa Elliott as she ran the office of R.J.'s Automotive in Double Springs, the county seat. "And that's OK."
Trump's call on July 25 included a request for the "favor" of investigating former Vice President Joe Biden, now a leading candidate to be the Democratic presidential nominee, and Biden's son Hunter. A yet-to-be-identified whistleblower alerted Congress to the details of the phone call and the White House subsequently released a "rough transcript" of the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The cry for impeachment has grown to such a level that even a poll by Fox News found 51 percent of voters supported impeachment. That wasn’t reflected in Winston County.
"If I remember in the 2016 election," Haleyville Mayor Ken Sunseri said, "the polls showed Hillary Clinton would be the unanimous winner."
Sunseri would seem to have a finger on the pulse of Winston County, having served as Haleyville’s mayor since 2008. He oversaw the 2016 construction of the new city hall and the city’s 50th anniversary last year of the nation’s first 911 call. And his father-in-law was mayor on that historic day on Feb. 16, 1968.
The nation's first 911 call took place in Haleyville in 1968.
Asked if he voted for Trump in 2016, Sunseri said he did and volunteered he will vote for him next year, too. So a poll –by, yes, Fox News -- seemingly given credence to impeachment? No, Trump is still Trump.
"Without knowing who conducted the poll or what region it was done, it's difficult to put any value on it," Sunseri said.
The Fox poll sampled 1,003 registered voters with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
"I don't believe the poll," Frost said. "It's not right. They're just railroading him."
That "favor" has been the red meat Democrats have seized upon to perhaps make the push to remove Trump from office. If the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is a complicated gray area, the Ukraine phone call is seemingly simple -- undisputed by even Trump and the White House itself. In that phone call, Trump asked a foreign government to investigate Biden, a political rival who could stand between Trump and a second term in office.
Unconditional love for Trump
Yet the county's devotion to Trump could perhaps approach defiance. No Trump supporter who talked with AL.com last week could give voice to any line in the sand that the president could cross that would change their vote.
"I don't think so," said Randall Colburn as he sat for a haircut in Razor's Edge.
"I don't know of anybody (whose support for Trump has faded)," Elliott said.
Brandon Lewis, at work in downtown Double Springs, said nothing has changed in Winston County's overwhelming support for President Trump.
Last year, AL.com talked to Brandon Lewis in Double Springs.
"It's still pretty much the same," he said when asked about Trump's support in Winston County.
Lewis might be considered a bit of a moderate when it comes to Trump. He said he voted for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, then voted for Trump over Clinton in the general election.
"Does Trump do things I don't like?" Lewis said. "Yeah, he does. But I don't see any better candidates running."
Later, Lewis said, "the Democrats don't have anybody that can beat him."
Lewis looks at the Democratic Party long enough to know he wants to look elsewhere.
"If you have a D next to your name, I have to believe you support everything in their platform," Lewis said. "And I can't go along with that."
Across the street from the outdoor equipment business where Lewis works, a "Trump 2020" flag flies above the auto repair shop where Elliott works.
Another woman sat behind the counter near Elliott, quietly nodding her head approving of Elliott approving of Trump. Later, another woman arrives with lunch for the office and, without sharing her name, voices her support for Trump as well.
"And the wall," said Elliott. "I'm a supporter of that. He's done everything he said he would do so far."
A flag supporting President Trump's re-election bid in 2020 flies above R.J.'s Automotive in Double Springs, the county seat of Winston County.
The progress of the wall on the Mexican border, like most things in Trump world, is disputed. The president said new sections of the wall are under construction; others say it's simply repairing old sections of the wall in place long before he was elected.
But in Winston County, there is also a focus on jobs and the economy. In Haleyville, while getting his haircut, Colburn said: "I think he's helped the economy more than anybody in a long time," said Colburn, who frequently travels to Mississippi for business and said support is strong there, too.
Mayor Sunseri expressed a lone voice of concern. A small-town mayor sees problems up close that don't necessarily grab headlines or segments on cable news.
He, too, points to the strength of the economy and the tax cuts passed by Congress last year. He bemoans, "I've never seen a president as disrespected or his office as disrespected as President Trump."
Is anybody still governing?
But if Washington is consumed with talk of impeachment, if the government is paralyzed the latest turns in the drama playing out on cable news, Sunseri wonders: Is anybody governing?
He also brings up the devastation from opioids in Winston County. His town is part of the 4th Congressional District in Alabama, rated last year as having the highest prescription rates of any district in the country for opioids. Sunseri fought to save Haleyville’s only medical center -- Lakeland Community Hospital, which announced plans to close in November 2017. Recent tax hikes approved by the city of Haleyville and Winston County Commission has kept the hospital open.
And Sunseri also raised the issue of access to mental health treatment.
"We've got to address these issues," the mayor said. "We're worried about what was said on a phone call with Ukraine? I'm worried we're not governing and doing what's best for our country in this process."
It's a sobering perspective, perhaps one without an easy answer. In Small Town America, what matters more? A phone call with Ukraine or health care? Seeking a foreign investigation into a domestic political rival or the opioids crisis? Or can the government address both?
In Winston County, the answer is Trump. The answer is always Trump.
"No, I'm a supporter," Elliott said. "I don't see anything that would turn me against him. I think that's the way most everybody feels about him around here.
The mayor summed it up by saying, “Yes, Winston County will support President Trump in his re-election campaign.”