How fentanyl deaths are causing some grieving parents to embrace Trump

Dawn Allen wasn’t just a voting booth Democrat — she knocked on doors and donated money, including to President Joe Biden.

But after her son died from fentanyl poisoning last year, she grew frustrated by what she viewed as Biden’s hands-off approach to the opioid crisis. Now she says she won’t vote for a Democrat, and she finds herself more in line with the candidate who has focused sharply on the deadly fentanyl epidemic: former President Donald Trump.

“It feels like a really bad breakup,” the 47-year-old mother of three other children said from her home in a Chicago suburb. “I’m really, really hurt.”

Allen is part of a network of opioid-affected families who are pressing government officials to do more to address what experts call the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history. Among that group, many say Trump’s tough talk on drugs resonates with them, according to a series of interviews with activists and grieving family members, even though fentanyl deaths nearly doubled during his administration.

The fentanyl awareness movement “leans to the right – no question,” said Andrea Thomas, who lost a daughter in 2018 and has become a leader of grieving parents seeking to boost the government’s response to the crisis. “Our U.S. government is almost complicit, and now there is such an unlimited supply of this poison here it’s indicative of stockpiling.”

The government says fentanyl kills around 70,000 Americans each year – more than car accidents and shootings combined. The crisis has impacted Americans of all regions, income levels, races and political persuasions.

But Republicans appear to have placed a greater emphasis on the issue in their public messaging. To cite one example: The GOP’s national convention in July featured