A retirement village outside of Orlando was the key to Trump's 2016 win in Florida. This year, some residents are switching to Biden.

• The Villages, Florida's largest retirement community, voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016.
• The senior community played a key role in pushing Trump toward a win in Florida, but now some of the residents say they're fed up with the president. 
• The battle between Democrats and Republicans in the community has been, at times, nasty. Earlier this year, a Trump supporter shouted "white power" during a pro-Trump rally. The president retweeted then deleted a video of the incident.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sitting in his living room in The Villages, Florida's largest retirement community, Dave Davidson tells me he can't stand Donald Trump. He's ineffective, nepotistic, and downright rude, he says. Davidson has a good reason to feel strongly about the president's behavior: he voted for Trump in 2016.

"People ask, are you sorry that you voted for Trump in 2016? I can't be—I voted based upon the best information that was available to me," Davidson said. "But for the last four years, he's done nothing but divide us. That's coming back at him now."

Davidson is part of a small but growing number of residents in The Villages who voted for Trump in the last election but plan to vote for Biden this year. Disillusioned with the president's rhetoric and frustrated at his inability to make good on his campaign promises, they're now backing Biden in the hopes that he will embody their view of how a president should behave. 

"I think people thought that he was going to moderate his behavior and that he would tone it down," Chris Stanley, the president of the Villages Democratic Club, told Insider. "They thought he would surround himself with smart people who knew what they were doing, who actually understood the American government. Clearly, they were wrong."

Until the votes are tallied, it can't be known for sure how many "Villagers," as residents call themselves, have spurned Trump in this election. The Villages currently have around 70,000 residents, and Republicans outnumber Democrats two to one. But Stanley says their internal figures suggest around 6% of registered Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 will vote for Biden in this election. And in a state with notoriously thin margins, small changes in party alignment may be key to deciding the election.

Seniors, who are a significant voting block in Florida, are some of the state's most coveted voters. That's because they tend to turn out in higher numbers than other age demographics. In 2016, roughly 71% of voters ages 65 and above voted, compared to just 46% of people age 18 to 29, according to the Census Bureau. Trump relied heavily on these voters to secure his win in 2016—the Pew Research Center estimated he led the senior vote by nine percentage points nationally.

The Villages, where the median age is 66, has been a Republican stronghold for the past several elections. During the 2008 election, Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, was one of the first major political figures to campaign there. While Florida ended up going to Obama, McCain won the three counties that comprise The Villages — Sumter, Lake, and Marion — by 52,000 votes. 

"That area has a lot of retirees from the Midwest and other places that have brought their Republican Party affiliations with them," Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida distinguished professor of political science, told Insider. "So it's been a Republican stronghold for quite some time."

As The Villages grew, so did its influence on the state's electorate. In 2012, Mitt Romney won the three counties by 76,000 votes. In 2016, Trump made The Villages a key point for his reelection campaign. It paid off — Trump won the counties the Villages is located in by nearly 115,000 votes, roughly the same margin that won him the state.

Residents say people come to The Villages to experience 'law and order and patriotism and people being thoughtful to each other'

It's no coincidence that The Villages is overwhelmingly Republican — it's by design. When Gary Morse, a developer and longtime Republican donor, began to develop the area in the 1990s, he did so with an eye toward the desires of affluent retirees who were overwhelmingly white and conservative. In particular, Morse embraced New Urbanism, a popular urban design movement in the 1990s and 2000s that returned to the human-scale design of the pre-war era.

Organized around a series of themed neighborhoods, The Villages is designed to mimic a romantic view of yesteryear's small towns. Each "village" is centered around a walkable town square, which quickly gives way to suburban sprawl. Villagers often speak about their community in glowing terms. 

"There's a sense of community here. You'll never see garbage on the street here because people know it's their home," Davidson said. 

"They kind of reinvented the small towns of the 1950s, but in an idealized form," said Hugh Bartling, a professor of Public Policy Studies at DePaul University who has studied The Villages. But, Bartling noted, this idealistic vision of small-town America is a narrow one. 

The reasons that inspire people to move to The Villages have also kept many voters here loyal to President Trump, who visited the community last week. Indeed, Trump's assertions that "Democrat-run cities are now rampant with crime" resonate strongly with many Republican Villagers. After all, many of them came to The Villages in search of the "Suburban Lifestyle Dream" that Trump promises to deliver if reelected.

Lee Green, who works with the Villagers for Trump club, says the residents she's spoken with are firmly aligned with Trump, largely because they believe he is making America look more like The Villages.

"People come here and they experience, you know, law and order and patriotism and people being thoughtful to each other," Green said. She's confident Villagers will vote to reelect Trump because he'll maintain the status quo.

But that thoughtfulness may not extend to all members of the community. People of color, who make up around 2% of The Villages' population, say they often find themselves marginalized or attacked. 

 "It's a manufactured understanding of small-town America that appeals to a white population," Bartling, the Depaul University professor, said. "If you talk to people of color, they might have a very different view." 

Indeed, Chris Stanley says there's been racial strife among residents. 

"There's been reports of interracial couples being harassed, and Black couples having pointed comments toss their way," says Stanley.

In June, a Trump supporter yelled "white power" at a group of protestors from Stanley's club during a golf cart rally. The club had recently finished holding a vigil for George Floyd with Sophisticated Gents, one of The Villages' only Black social clubs. A video of the incident was tweeted — then deleted — by President Trump.

Trump's grip on the community may be loosening

At a nearby early voting location, most of those who had cast their ballots told Business Insider they had voted for Trump. "He's maintained our lifestyle — I'm living great," Glenda, who declined to give her last name, said.

While very few people believe Biden will win The Villages in this election, there is a strong sense that Trump's grip on the community is loosening. While the change is partially due to anger at Trump's character, it's also because the demographics are changing. While The Villages were initially populated by retirees from the Midwest, younger retirees moving from the Northeast are now joining the community, and they tend to lean Democrat, MacManus said.

Stanley agrees with that assessment. "Younger retirees tend to be much more open-minded than the older retirees here," she says. "So each year as people retire and move here, they're much more likely to be inclusive and, hopefully, vote Democrat."

But for voters like Davidson, who have lived in The Villages for several years and still consider themselves Republicans, this is a one-off decision. "I need a person of integrity. I see that with Mr. Biden," says Davidson, the Republican who voted for Trump in 2016. "He may prove me to be wrong, in which event in four years time, I'll do this again."