The Undecided

Almost a year away from the November 2016 presidential election, she is pessimistic about the direction of the country, citing unemployment, social intolerance and conflicts in the Middle East.

Like Doubrley, 16 percent of independent voters identified unemployment as the most important problem currently facing the United States, second only to concerns about the economy in general, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Doubrley, who budgets carefully but said she still comes up $150 short each month, said she is concerned that none of the candidates seem to be familiar with the daily lives of average Americans.

Leading Republican candidate Donald Trump has a fortune of $4.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He says it is more. Leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton reported that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, made almost $140 million between 2007 and 2014.

“They’re not in touch. They haven’t been in touch for years or else they wouldn’t have the funds,” Doubrley said. “It’s a Catch-22: If they’ve got the money to be in politics, they’re no longer in touch with the average citizen.”

Doubrley, who was diagnosed with epilepsy, receives disability benefits. Her partner, Jen Doubrley, is a school counselor who recently took a second job as a Dollar Tree cashier three days per week to help them make ends meet.

She is also an insulin-dependent diabetic, which has led Donna Doubrley to criticize pharmaceutical companies for expensive medicine and make homemade low-sugar desserts and jams, avoiding store-bought goods that are both pricy and processed.

While she thinks change is necessary, she does not think the government should be more involved in regulating pharmaceutical companies or many other areas.

Haggerty, who is white, is a registered Republican and voted for Governor Mitt Romney in 2012. But he has voted for Democrats before, including twice for President Bill Clinton, whose wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, leads the pack seeking her party's nomination for 2016.

Haggerty is most concerned about how candidates would protect Social Security benefits. He expects to begin drawing retirement benefits in April, after three years of disability leave from the state of Massachusetts, where he was an auditor.

Haggerty, once a regular racquetball player, was diagnosed in 2011 with Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder that affects motor skills. “I started tripping over my right foot,” he said. “I had to start thinking about it to make it move.”

Because he left work earlier than expected, Haggerty’s wife will probably work a few years more than she had planned at a nearby community college. While she is at work, Haggerty, who has adult children, exercises and takes classes at a local college, including a recent one on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

About 30 percent of respondents in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said Democrats had a better plan for Social Security; 26 percent did not have a preference and 25 percent favored Republicans. Haggerty agrees with Republicans that federal spending is out of control, but he said the party wasted opportunities in the past to make changes. “Republicans keep saying they want small government, but they’ve never had it,” Haggerty said. Republican lawmakers also have not done enough to crack down on illegal immigration, Haggerty said, which he believes puts a burden on the health care system and social welfare programs.

The mother of two grown sons -- plus a couple of “take in” kids who stayed with her as teens and she views as practically her own now -- Hale explains she always tries to find the candidate who is most focused on fairness. Her biggest turn off? The excessive “frothing at the mouth” that has become prolific in politics.

“Why do we have to yell and scream at each other?” Hale said. “I don’t think that we ever get anything accomplished that way.”

She admits that she leans left -- often favoring Democrats in federal elections including President Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008. But none of the crop this year has her very excited. Once a young, enthusiastic “bra-burning” feminist, Hale says the idea of voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton doesn’t thrill her.

While she agrees with Republicans on a number of fiscal issues, she has not seen much of a track record that they are willing to follow through. She cites years of Republican control in Washington that didn’’t actually result in reduced spending or deficit reduction.

At 90 years old, he was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. Much to her surprise, she was able to quickly sell his home to cover the cost of the new treatment.

But that does not mean the bills are not continuing to cause problems. When she began overseeing his medication, he was paying more than $900 a month for his prescriptions as he attempted to get them filled through the Veterans Administration. He served during World War Two.

Hale waited until Medicare Part D enrollment opened earlier this year and moved her father out of the VA system and into the Medicare system -- saving her almost $800 a month in copays.

“To me, they’ve kind of let the fringe groups of the party take over, like the environmentalists, the Occupy Wall Street people, the Black Lives Matter people,” he said.

“All these people that are a small group are basically steering the direction of the party when, you know, it’s gotten so bad that you don’t see hardly any compromise between both parties anymore,” he said.

League said his job has given him good work-life balance, allowing him to save money on food and gas while primarily working from home in an office featuring pictures of his two young sons and emblems of his alma mater Ohio State University.

In August, his family of four moved into a new house in a growing Sunbury, Ohio, development, a neighborhood where tricycles and scooters lie in driveways, Halloween decorations and pumpkins color front lawns, and his son’s soccer coach lives down the street.

League, who waited until the housing market improved to sell his family’s old house and buy land for their new one, said it seems too good to be true, though he worries his sons will have less in the way of freedom and financial security when they are his age.

The average cost of tuition and fees at a public four-year university was $9,139 for in-state students and $22,958 for out-of-state students in the 2014-15 school year, according to data collected by the College Board. By some estimates, that figure could double or triple by the time League’s children enter college.

As his wife expects their third son, they are saving up to put a down payment on a minivan that will accommodate their growing family on weekends spent visiting parks and watching Gavin’s soccer games.

League’s biggest concerns are immigration reform and national security, placing him among a relatively small 8 percent of all voters and 5 percent of independents who say immigration is the most important problem facing the United States today, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Malik, who is black and grew up near Denver, is a registered Republican. She is pro-life and said she has supported Republicans on foreign policy.

Job openings for physical education teachers can be hard to find, Malik said, especially in southwestern Colorado. “The only time that a PE job will open up is usually because they retired. They don’t usually give those up very easily,” Malik said. “Right now it’s kind of just like a waiting game.”

Stories like hers are likely the reason 19 percent of respondents in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll under age 30 see unemployment and lack of jobs as the most important problem facing the United States today. That is the top issue for the age group.

Physical education is so important to Malik that, in 2012, she voted for President Barack Obama, largely out of support for first lady Michelle Obama's campaign to fight childhood obesity and increase physical education, or PE.

Even though she is teaching, Malik is technically still a student at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is paying tuition out-of-pocket this semester and will finish school with about $26,000 in loans, she estimates.

On top of teaching, Malik works most days as a cashier at Wal-Mart. She and her girlfriend share an apartment in Durango, and they share a car now, too.

It is a code he still lives by.

But that does not mean he is backing a Republican. When it comes to issues like Social Security, Medicare and gay marriage, he finds himself more in tune with Democrats. And he finds the Tea Party and conservative pull in the Republican Party to be a turnoff.

An independent, Wonase is one of the thousands of people in the nation who remain undecided. He voted for Barack Obama in the last two elections, but he’s holding off in making a decision about 2016. And he hails from Iowa -- one of the handful of states that are likely to decide the November 2016 election.

For Wonase, the most important trait in a candidate is not their view on a specific issue. It is all about cooperation.

“You’ve got to work together. You’ve got to come to a compromise,” Wonase said.

He finds pieces of his own life story in every issue currently being debated. And he admits that when forming opinions about political issues, his first criterion is figuring out the impact on his own life.

He ended up working as an engineer for John Deere at its Iowa headquarters. He retired after 30 years and now lives comfortably. He invested while he was working. He still gets a pension. And once again, every month he is collecting Social Security.

There is no greater testament to Wonase’s love of compromise than watching him interact with his wife, Diann Wonase.

Diann is a “bleeding heart liberal.”

“And you know what I would say,” Richard responded. “I saved and that’s where the fiscal thing comes. I saved my butt enough money so I could enjoy retirement. Because I didn’t want to be in retirement having to depend on anybody or anything else. That makes me the self-sufficient Republican. I did it all myself, I never got a damn penny from the government. But I don’t begrudge anybody who did get something from the government.”