Joe Biden told these voters to vote for someone else. Here's what they want from his campaign

Three voters discuss their viral clashes on the campaign trail after the former vice president dismissed their questions or told them to vote for Donald Trump

Months before he would emerge as the front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden was one among a dense field of candidates, all vying for face time with voters at campaign stops in crucial primary states.

But as he made inroads in meetings and events with supporters, his campaign was marred by a series of awkward, condescending and physical meetings with would-be voters in crowds and in forums in front of dozens of people and cameras.

He grabbed lapels and hands, grew combative with difficult questions, told people they're wrong, or told them to vote for someone else, including his rival Donald Trump.

The former vice president called one man a liar and challenged him to pushups, called a young climate activist "child" and told immigrants and environmentalists to vote for his opponent.

Several months later, amid a public health crisis that, in 2019, barely registered on the campaign trail, Mr Biden heads to the Democratic National Convention as the likely nominee in an election framed by the critical demands of an international emergency.

But for the Democratic voters who left interactions with Campaign Biden defeated and dismissed, there remain unanswered questions and concerns while the candidate collects endorsements from Democratic powerhouses and prepares to face Trump in November.

Carlos Rojas on immigration reform

Silvia Morreno, an immigrants rights leader with Dignidad Inmigrante, stood up to address Mr Biden at a campaign stop in South Carolina in November.

"Every day I live with the fear that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will separate my family," she said in Spanish, speaking through Carlos Rojas, who translated for her.

"You defended the 3 million deportations under Obama's administration, and that is why it is hard for me to trust you," she said. "I want to know whether you would stop deportations through executive action on your first day in office."

Mr Rojas, speaking on his own behalf, told Mr Biden he volunteered for the Obama campaign in 2008 because he believed "the promises that he made to the immigrant community".

"​The fact is that over those eight years, over 3 million people were deported and separated from families," he said.

Mr Biden cut him off: "Well you should vote for Trump then."

The event followed several protests targeting the Biden campaign to pressure the candidate to address the Obama administration's legacy as "deporter in chief" among many immigrant families, targeted not only from the Trump administration's rhetoric and sweeping deportations and detentions but also by the "broken promises" from the Obama years, Mr Rojas told The Independent.

"Obviously the way the Trump administration talks about immigrants and their policies that criminalise immigrants are horrific," said Mr Rojas, who later joined the Bernie Sanders campaign as an organiser in Iowa. "But this narrative that the Biden campaign preaches — going back to the Obama years — is also not a good place for immigrants."

While President Obama authorised the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which provided a pathway to legal status for young people who entered the US without legal permission as children, the administration also deported more more than 400,000 immigrants within his first year in office, eclipsing the number of people deported under Republican president George W Bush in his last year.

Under the Trump administration, migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexico border were at a 12-year high in 2019, when more than 850,000 people — double the previous year — were detained despite growing requests for asylum.

While ICE arrests have increased by more than 30 per cent since Mr Trump's order giving the agency broader authority to detain unauthorised immigrants, including people without criminal records, they are still below the peak of arrests under the Obama administration, when ICE arrested nearly 300,000 people from 2009 to 2010.

Despite making up a significant voting bloc within the grassroots "Obama coalition" that helped him win the White House, immigrant groups continued to clash with the Obama administration over its "broken promises" on reform as he delayed executive actions after efforts stalled in Congress.

"Those promises and that potential were never crystallised," Mr Rojas said. "There is disappointment — and I would even say resentment — towards the Democratic party, from voters of colour, voters who care about immigration, about the shortcomings of the Obama administration."

In March, Mr Biden committed to a moratorium on deportations within the first 100 days of his administration if elected, and he has promised comprehensive immigration reform on his first day in office. But Mr Rojas says that's not enough to begin to repair more than a decade of harmful immigration policies if that moratorium results in a return to the status quo.

"That's a debate we have to deal with every day — 'I know you're not going to vote for Trump because what I have to offer is slightly better' — [but] a little bit is not enough anymore," he said. "There needs to be a real effort to hear where the community is at, a real effort to be open and transparent about the shortcomings and broken promises and pain, and a real effort to let that be a foundation for policy to undo the damage that has been done."

Mr Biden has conceded that deportations under the Obama administration were a "big mistake" but has struggled to draft a humane immigration agenda that appeals to moderates without risking alienating Latino voters.

"I understand why, politically speaking, this narrative of going back to the Obama years speaks to a lot of voters, but it also excludes a lot of folks who became a part of the coalition, who felt disenfranchised during Obama's eight years in office, though they believed in him at the beginning," Mr Rojas said. "On January 2021, I want to see a president who isn't attacking immigrants through rhetoric every day. But I also want to make sure that just because the immigration rhetoric isn't being inflamed, that we're also not being thrown under the bus through policies."

Mr Rojas said he doesn't endorse staying home in November, but he doesn't blame voters for doing so.

"We've given them more than enough reasons to feel that way," he said. "There's a lot that the Democratic establishment, Joe Biden, could actually do to appeal to these folks, and if they don't do it now when the pain is so evident, when the need is so big, then when are they gonna do it?"

Ed Fallon on oil pipelines and climate change

During a January campaign stop in Des Moines, Ed Fallon — a former Iowa general assembly member and climate organiser — had another face-to-face moment with Mr Biden after unsuccessfully trying to pin him down on a satisfactory answer about his support for oil pipeline construction.

In a moment captured on video, Mr Fallon asked the candidate: "I like you, and I'm going to support you if you win the nomination because we have to get rid of [Mr Trump], but what are we going to do about climate change? ... We have to stop building and replacing pipelines."

Mr Biden's response: "Go vote for someone else."

After Mr Fallon told him that he plans to support the former vice president in the general election, Mr Biden told him "I'm running in the primary" before grabbing Mr Fallon by his jacket lapels.

Mr Fallon said he was shocked by the former vice-president's reaction. On his website, he wrote that the exchange was "disturbing on a number of levels" and that "his propensity to violate personal space is a huge non-asset in politics".

By that point, he had been trying to pin down Mr Biden's position on pipelines for more than a year.

During the candidate's repeat visits to the state, Mr Fallon and his Bold Iowa organisation have pressed him on his positions on climate change, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and whether he supports removing or replacing older gas pipelines leaking methane, after giving apparently contradictory statements over his opposition to new construction.

"When a candidate was evasive we came back and tried to get them on record where they really stood," Mr Fallon told The Independent.

Mr Biden has said he supports replacing broken pipelines, but is against new construction, an answer that has confounded Mr Fallon.

"He seemed to be talking out of both sides of his both," he said.

Though Mr Fallon has been disillusioned with the Obama administration's climate response (what Mr Fallon said "promised us the moon" but "delivered a whole bag of mixed messages" in return), he admits that Mr Biden — joining a growing chorus among Democrats — can now speak to the urgency of the moment.

"It's good to see that the input of Bernie Sanders and other progressive voices within the Democratic party seem to be taken seriously by Biden," he said.

If Mr Biden ultimately receives the party's nomination, Mr Fallon will be supporting him in November, just as he promised the former vice president on the campaign trail.

"The bottom line is, I've had six or seven statements from Biden — how many have I had with Trump?" he said. "Trump is a firm climate denier. He's doing everything he can to worsen the crisis. ... [Biden] may not be strongest on climate, but given the alternative, I really hope people will follow Senator Sanders' lead on this and support Biden.

Mr Fallon says the "gold standard" is for Mr Biden to declare a climate emergency "on day one" of his administration, contrasting the moment to President Trump's first day, in which he he reauthorized Keystone and DAPL pipelines.

"Biden is going to become increasingly clear he's got to take some major leadership," he said. "We need a president who understands the climate and the urgency to act on day one to address it."

With Mr Biden in office, climate organisers like Mr Fallon are "going to work our tail off to hold him accountable" to the demands of the crisis.

"With Trump you can't even do that," he said. "At least with Biden you can have the conversation. ... Voters need to remember this is not a choice between an evil and ideal candidate. It's a choice between evil and someone who is going to least is not going to lead us down the road to oblivion."

But Mr Fallon says the growing public health emergency following the coronavirus pandemic has glimpsed the shortcomings of a national response to the larger and long-ignored threat of climate change.

"I feel less optimistic than I ever have before," he said. "I see us continuing to ignore so many clear messages about what's going on."

Michaelyn Mankel on a Green New Deal and super PAC support

During a media and handshake scrum at a September campaign stop in Des Moines, Michaelyn Mankel had pushed herself "out of her comfort zone" to come face to face with Mr Biden, she told The Independent.

Ms Mankel, then a field organiser with youth-led political action group Sunrise Movement, had prepared to "show up and ask questions that matter to millions of young people like me".

In a video of the exchange, Ms Mankel faces Mr Biden in the crowd and says: "I'm part of the Sunrise Movement and we're fighting for a Green New Deal."

He grabs her hands and tells her: "Well, you get a better deal from me than anybody."

"I'm just wondering, how can we trust you when you've continually broken your pledge not to take fossil-fuel money and held fundraisers with a CEO?" she asks

"I have not, that is not true," he says.

Weeks earlier, he had attended a fundraising event hosted by a former adviser and co-founder of natural gas company Western LNG.

"How about your climate adviser Heather Zichal — she's actually made a million dollars from the fossil-fuel industry," she says. "We need a Green New Deal, not more corruption."

Ms Zichal served as Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama administration but later founded an energy consulting firm and joined the boards of Cheniere Energy and Abengoa Bioenergy.

The former vice president pats her hand and walks away, saying: "Thank you for being ... for admiring me so much."

In another exchange captured by Sunrise in North Carolina, Mr Biden tells an organiser "look at my record, child" after he takes a selfie while being questioned about super PAC support.

Ms Mankel, now an organiser with Michigan United, said she left the moment with "a lot of personal shame, like I had let people down" and felt she had "made it easy for him to dismiss me and not take me seriously."

Footage of her interaction went viral, but "because of the warm reception I got, it made it seem very clearly that I gave him an opportunity for a real response to an issue that's incredibly important, and it was his decision to write me off and not take me seriously," she said.

"Looking back on it, I recognise it's not really the problem," she said. "That's really the Democratic party's response to pretty much everyone who is wealthy, who is white, who is affluent, who doesn't have access to mainstream politics ... at virtually every level of leadership."

Mr Biden "should be willing to engage voters not tell them to vote for someone else or be condescending in a public place," she said.

Sunrise Movement and eight other youth organising affiliates issued a list of policy and personnel commitments they're demanding from the Biden campaign, including a commitment to a $10 trillion Green New Deal stimulus package, with a goal towards 100 per cent clean-energy creation by 2030 and to "prosecute the fossil fuel executives and lobbyists who have criminally jeopardized our generation".

In return, the organisations pledged to mobilise thousands of young people on his campaign's behalf.

Young voters have warned that the hulking generation gap between Mr Sanders's supporters and Mr Biden's during the primary isn't diminished simply with an anti-Trump platform,

Mr Biden unveiled a limited plan for free college tuition, partially borrowing a concept from the Sanders campaign, and in April, the campaign announced the creation of several working groups relying on support from Senator Sanders's campaign and other progressive leaders -- including Green New Deal champion and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is co-chairing a working group on climate change.

Also in that working group is Varshini Prakash, the executive director of Sunrise Movement.

"We can't ignore the discontent and tension" among the party's more moderate wing and young progressives, Ms Mankel said. "There's nothing more that I'd love than being energised, [to] get out the vote ... But I can't encourage someone to vote for someone who doesn't listen to them."

If sweeping progressive changes "remain a liberal fantasy" among party leadership, Democrats risk losing a generation of voters, now organising among themselves with other young people to hold the party accountable, Ms Mankel said.

"My approach is to get young voters mobilised and make them empowered," she said, engaging a moment that invokes the social movements that propelled the Civil Rights era by organising "everyday Americans participating in mass non-cooperation, disobedience, and symbols of people power".

"It doesn't end with voting or showing up at polls for progressive change," she said. "My hope is that things get easier moving towards November."

Despite the prospect of an immovable candidate and an ageing status quo, Ms Mankel says "there's no limit to what organisers are willing to do to beat Trump in 2020".