US election 2020: Pennsylvania divided amid potential political unrest
Six days out from the US presidential election, many are concerned there will be civil unrest, with rumours flying thick and fast that troops are being readied to restore order in cities in case of trouble on Election Night.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- The major gaffe that could sink Biden’s presidency bid
- Download our app and stay up to date anywhere, anytime
PUNXSUTAWNEY, USA
Six days out from the US presidential election, Pennsylvania is a state divided – and on the edge.
In the state’s east, Philadelphia is reeling from a second night of riots after the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr, who officials say advanced on authorities with a knife before officers opened fire.
Footage of the riots shows looters emptying big box stores of appliances, white goods, televisions, clothing, and shoes with the governor requesting National Guard troops to restore the peace in neighbourhoods that local police say are now “a total loss”.
And while the state and its crucial 20 electoral votes went for Donald Trump by less than one percentage point in 2016, voters this year are expecting an even closer result, especially given a recent court ruling giving local officials three extra days after the election to count mail-in ballots.
In heavily Democratic Pittsburgh, voters handing in their early ballots at the County Office Building in the were uniformly sympathetic to Biden, with more than one voter calling President Donald Trump a “fascist” and a “racist” and pinning blame for America’s COVID-19 death toll squarely on the White House.
Local Duquesne University student Trinity McCool said of Trump, “he’s a Nazi!” when asked to describe her feelings about the president, adding that she would be devastated if Biden were to lose next week.
Many, too, were concerned that whichever way the vote went, there would be civil unrest, with rumours flying thick and fast that troops are being readied to restore order in cities in case of trouble on Election Night.
At the Bakersfield bar in the city’s downtown Strip District, which prides itself on authentic Mexican food, over 100 types of tequila, and a playlist from the outlaw era of country music, trainee nurse Lisa told The Daily Telegraph that she was “terrified” about the state of women’s rights.
“It’s going to be the Handmaid’s Tale in eight months”, she said, referring to the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court earlier in the week.
But leave the heavily Democratic island of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania countryside quickly turns into Trump country, with yard signs supporting the president outnumbering those for the Biden-Harris by a good 9-to-1 margin.
Visiting Punxsutawney, best known for the annual “Groundhog Day” ritual (and Bill Murray film of the same name), it was clear that this small town of under 6,000 – and dozens of others The Daily Telegraph drove through – is clearly Trump country.
Of nearly a dozen voters The Daily Telegraph spoke to in “Punxsy”, every single one said they were casting their votes for Trump – many more enthusiastically than they did in 2016, when the local vote in the county went 78 per cent for Trump, 18 per cent for Hillary Clinton.
In this part of Pennsylvania energy jobs are king, and much as Bill Shorten’s refusal to come clean on the cost of his clean energy plans cost him the May, 2019, election, Joe Biden’s bet each way on the Green New Deal is bleeding his campaign of votes.
At the local Republican Party headquarters, campaign workers Rose Handyside and Jeanne Story sat amongst what was left of a room full of Trump 2020 campaign paraphernalia which had been flying out the door for weeks.
“We’ve helped put through 400 Republican registrations, that’s new Republicans and Democrats switching to Republicans”, Handyside said, referring to the American system whereby voters can register with a party affiliation.
“And in Harrisburg, we did 500 Amish registrations alone.”
Outside the headquarters, a tidy Gothic Revival-style home on a quiet street near the centre of the town, retired aerospace engineer Jim Lucina told The Daily Telegraph that energy jobs were important, as his son worked in the gas fields, but that he was also concerned that Joe Biden’s defense policy may be too weak or compromised to deal with a rising China.
“During Jimmy Carter, we had a weak military, and there was no work for aerospace engineers”, he said.
“Then Reagan came along, and we beat the Soviet Union. We need a strong military again.”
Asked about the revelations in the Hunter Biden emails that suggest that the Democrat candidate’s son tried to trade influence for dollars, Mr Lucina is clear.
“I think he’s corrupt”, he said.
But peel away the politics, and the concerns about violence and civil unrest, and there is still a beating heart of American values and community.
MORE NEWS
Hard drive bombshell: new claims rock the Bidens
Remember 2016? Why you can’t count Trump out
Kevin Rudd: ‘I can’t recall meeting Jeffrey Epstein’
Locals were keen to talk to a visiting press crew, and a local council ranger offered a quarter (25 cent piece) for the parking meter rather than write a ticket, something that would be all but unheard of in Australia.
It is this America of neighbourliness and good manners that will have to prevail if a close or contested result is not to lead to catastrophe.
Follow James’s coverage of the US Election on Sky News Australia, and on a special pre-election edition of Outsiders, Sunday 9am.