Grill Dad Greg
 | |
| Era | The Modern Era |
|---|---|
| Age | 40-50 |
| Home | Dublin, OH |
| Demographic | suburban, white, moderate dad |
| Lean | Swing voter |
| Race | white |
| Predecessor | NASCAR Doug |
Greg is an IT manager in the Columbus suburbs who votes on his property tax, his health premium, and the price of petrol, and wishes politics would leave him alone. He is a decisive political independent, the suburban moderate father both parties call the middle.
Who they stand for
Greg represents the suburban swing voter of the Midwestern exurbs, in towns such as Dublin, Ohio, and the ring of subdivisions around every state capital. He watched Franklin County turn Democratic around him without joining that shift himself. His decade can be tracked through a series of bills, including Affordable Care Act premiums that rose after 2013, the school closures of 2020 that kept his children at the kitchen table for a year, the inflation of 2021 and 2022, the rise in petrol prices after Russia invaded Ukraine, and the Ohio property reappraisals of 2023 that raised his tax bill through a single letter. He voted for whichever candidate seemed steadier and less theatrical, which is why his vote went to different parties across this period.
Bergen Vinny worried about petrol prices in 1995, and NASCAR Doug about his health premium in 2006. Doug alone in this line took a strong side, backing Bush and the Iraq war for three years. Greg has no war and no defining cause of his own. Ohio's 2023 abortion referendum surprised him. He voted for it, not from strong conviction, but because the ban struck him as the more extreme option on the ballot.
Playing to them
Greg responds well to stability. He wants low property taxes, a mortgage rate that does not move, a health premium that does not rise, petrol prices he does not notice, and schools that stay open. He supports law and order because it keeps things quiet, and he has no fixed view on abortion or marriage beyond wanting nobody to argue with him about either. He will not forgive a tax rise, a lockdown, a price spike, or a president who seems to enjoy political drama, and he treats extremism from either party as a cost to him personally, so the less extreme party tends to win his vote by default.
Greg is one of the cheapest voters in the cast to hold and one of the easiest to lose by accident. Winning his support by keeping taxes and prices down costs Woodstock Allen and Detroit Denise, who want more spending. Winning his support through school funding and law and order costs Montana Matt and Podcast Pete, who want less spending overall. His nearest political neighbours are Suburban Sarah and Plain Jane, and a president who shifts the support of any one of the three has usually shifted all three.
Where they live
The five states where Grill Dad Greg makes up the largest share of the electorate in the modern era:
- South Dakota
- North Dakota
- Nebraska
- Kansas
- Ohio
Lineage
Bergen Vinny → NASCAR Doug → Grill Dad Greg
The suburban father without an ideology, the same in every decade. He votes on the property tax, his health premium, interest rates and whether the president seems steady, and the only thing that changes is which cost is rising: petrol in 1995, the premium in 2006, inflation in 2019. The one exception is Doug, who supported Bush and the Iraq war after 9/11 for about three years. Greg has no such cause and votes for whichever party seems less extreme.