AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
You may recall the swing states. All seven went in favor of President-elect Donald Trump last November. Crucial wins on his return to the White House. So on the eve of his second term, we wanted to check in with residents there once more. How are they thinking about what's to come? We have reports from two of those key states, starting in Wisconsin.
MAAYAN SILVER, BYLINE: I'm Maayan Silver here at the industrial chic tap room at Raised Grain Brewing Company, where people are decompressing from the workweek, drinking beers like Udderly Perfect, a milk stout, and Frivolous Pursuit, a hazy IPA. It's located in Waukesha County, a Republican-leading suburb of Milwaukee, where President-elect Donald Trump received nearly 60% of the vote in November. Pat Walsh (ph) is at a table in the back with two of his friends, dipping into a pepperoni pizza and drinking barley wine. He's wearing a part camouflage, part American flag, Trump 2020 Make America Great Again hat. He'll be eagerly watching the inauguration on Monday.
PAT WALSH: Oh, I'm watching it. I'm watching it. Looking forward to Daddy getting back in the White House instead of the kindergartners who have been running the show for the last four years.
SILVER: Walsh wants Trump to do everything he's promised, from closing the border to reducing inflation to revamping the justice system. Walsh says he absolutely loves Trump's cabinet picks and says they show Trump's eyes are wide open this time. On the other side of the room, Pat Metuchenik (ph) says he's also a Trump supporter. He says he's on a fixed income and has to pay attention to every dollar. He says of Trump's promises to reduce inflation...
PAT METUCHENIK: Not sure exactly how he's going to go about it, but I look at it this way - he can't do any worse than the previous administration that's going out.
SILVER: He says he's not going to watch the inauguration because it's, quote, "a big waste of money" and that politicians should spend for the people, not for themselves.
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SUSAN CRAWFORD: Well, hello, Waukesha Dems. I am really happy to be here.
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SILVER: About five miles away from Raised Grain, Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal-backed candidate in a state Supreme Court race that's scheduled for later this year, is stopping by a meet and greet with local Democrats.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. Yeah.
SILVER: People here are taking Trump's return very differently. Yvonne Lumsden-Dill is in the front row of the meet and greet, waiting for candidates to take the podium.
YVONNE LUMSDEN-DILL: I am very afraid as a minority, as a female, that all the things he's talking about with Roe v. Wade, abortion laws, immigrants and everything, I believe he's going to be moving fast to get those things in place.
SILVER: She says she has a genetic disorder, and the prescription to treat it used to cost $20,000 a year. Now, it's capped at $2,000 a year under the Inflation Reduction Act.
LUMSDEN-DILL: For the first time, I'm feeling as if something that's going on in Washington, D.C., is going to hit me directly.
SILVER: She's worried that even as Trump ran on pledges to improve the economy, on this particular issue, he'll reverse course.
For NPR News, I'm Maayan Silver in Waukesha.
STEVE HARRISON, BYLINE: And I'm Steve Harrison in Charlotte, North Carolina. On a sunny, mild Friday afternoon, the Leatherman Golf driving range near the city's airport was packed. The inauguration was not top of mind. Everyone agreed it was shaping up to be something of a nonevent, especially compared to four years ago.
MATT LINCOLN: People are resigned to the fact that the Trump administration is going to be in office in a couple more days, and whether people supported him or not, it's what's going to happen.
HARRISON: That's Matt Lincoln (ph), a Charlotte attorney. He declined to say whom he voted for, but he's pleased that this is shaping up to be just another swearing-in.
LINCOLN: The peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next is something that I think should be at the absolute bedrock of the way our government operates.
HARRISON: Kyler Eckert (ph) voted for Trump and is looking forward to the inauguration.
KYLER ECKERT: I'm definitely excited about it. Just from a economy standpoint, it'd be nice to see, you know, things go in a better direction than they've been going in.
HARRISON: He thinks the U.S.' standing in the world will improve.
ECKERT: A little more respect, I guess, from other countries. I think that'll be good.
HARRISON: Trump won North Carolina, one of seven highly contested swing states. But Charlotte - the state's biggest city - is blue. It's in Mecklenburg County, which voted overwhelmingly for Vice President Kamala Harris. Alyssa O'Connell (ph), who voted for Harris, was shopping with her husband and two children this weekend. She's not planning to watch Monday.
ALYSSA O'CONNELL: It's between being busy with kids, work, taking care of the house. And no, I'm not particularly excited about the next four years.
HARRISON: She's hoping Trump won't follow through with his campaign promises, such as deporting millions of people who are in the United States without legal status.
O'CONNELL: I think what we've seen from Trump is that he does like to make big statements, and then sometimes they follow through, and sometimes maybe he didn't mean them quite the way they come out. So no one's up in arms. People are ready.
HARRISON: Jodi O'Neil (ph) - who's in her 20s - voted for Harris and is planning to watch part of Monday's ceremonies on her phone. She says Trump acts like a dictator. She's not optimistic about the next four years.
JODI O'NEIL: A lot of people have already seen it coming that he's talking about mass deportations starting next week, and so a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt during this. So...
HARRISON: Eight years ago, thousands of Charlotteans participated in a women's march in the city's downtown, and hundreds more went to Washington, D.C. This year, there are two protests scheduled, but both are expected to be small.
For NPR News, I am Steve Harrison in Charlotte.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO'S "SPECTRE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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