United Mates: What US town of Adelaide thinks of Trump v Harris
Pennsylvania is the biggest battleground up for grabs between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. See how locals in the town of Adelaide will be voting in our United Mates series.
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It all comes down to Pennsylvania. In the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, this is the biggest battleground state up for grabs on America’s electoral map.
The candidates are flooding the local airwaves with $US211m ($A319m) worth of campaign ads – more than double their spend in any other state. After Mr Trump won narrowly here in 2016, only for Joe Biden to fend him off in 2020, both sides know every vote will count.
That’s not lost on the people of Adelaide. More than a century ago, their town was one of the world’s biggest coal producers, but few traces remain of that boom before the bust. Good jobs are now far harder to find and locals want someone in the White House who will help.
That used to mean they were evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. Mr Trump, however, has racked up two-thirds of the votes around Adelaide in his first two campaigns, a trend that seems set to continue this November.
Watch the video above.
“What’s there not to like? Everything that he accomplished in his presidential term – it blew everybody out of the water,” says Josh Richey, who is wearing his mother’s red Make America Great Again hat while buying groceries.
“How could you not vote for Trump at this point?”
He points to a service station at the price of petrol, a common measure cited by Mr Trump’s supporters that life was better under his leadership.
Lorie Bartley, whose house nearby is covered with flags and signs supporting the former president, feels the same way.
“The gas prices were down, the economy was doing great, there were more jobs,” she says.
“Right now, America’s very depressing, very sad … America isn’t America right now, and I’m hoping he’ll change things.”
That attitude frustrates retired teacher Ted Kovall, who has lived in the area for half a century. He plans to vote for Ms Harris, but he has supported Republican candidates before and says it is “a shame that this is the best we have to offer”.
“The rural people have switched over because they think they’re going to solve all their problems,” Mr Kovall says.
“They don’t seem to understand how government works and who they should be voting for.”
His wife Phyllis is also backing Ms Harris, although while she is pleased the Democrats have a new candidate who excites younger voters, she is not convinced her neighbours are ready for a female president.
“I wish I could say yes to that,” she says, “but I do think in this area, we’re still living in a man-controlled world.”
Fishing on the banks of the Youghiogheny River, Trump supporter Charles Galasso is open to the idea. The day after his 66th birthday, the former kitchen hand says that while he hasn’t voted for years, he is thinking about casting a ballot for the candidate he thinks will create better-paying jobs and open up housing for people living on the streets like his brother.
He likes Mr Trump, saying he was “trying his best to help the low-income people” including with stimulus payments during Covid, but he would also “like to see a woman get in there”.
“You never know, man. Maybe she might turn out to be the best president there is, because she’s a woman,” Mr Galasso says.
In a nearby park, Scott Toth dismisses that idea as he prepares to vote for the first time.
“I don’t think making history is what counts here, I think doing what’s best for the country counts, and I think Trump is that choice,” he says.
The Marine is part of a growing group of young men voting more conservatively than their female counterparts. He is particularly frustrated with Ms Harris’s focus on defending the right to abortion, saying women should “take responsibility for the child”.
“Don’t just go get an abortion because you made a mistake and you’re trying to fix it,” Mr Toth says.
“There’s always other ways other than killing an innocent child.”
Mr Trump’s loyal supporters in and around Adelaide have not been swayed by his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, nor the criminal charges laid against him since then.
Ms Bartley vents that the media “don’t do nothing but lie”.
Mr Richey reckons the charges Mr Trump has faced “weren’t really proven”.
Mr Toth thinks the deadly January 6 riot was “kind of a set-up … to make him look bad”, and that perhaps the last election was stolen.
Retired coal miner William Mosser, who is helping 88-year-old Franklin Guth tidy up a church garden, is surprised by the adoration of Mr Trump in a community he has lived in all his life.
“Everybody says he did so much when he was president, but I couldn’t really see that much that he did,” Mr Mosser says.
“I don’t like the way he lies, and people believe it. What can I say?”
Both men plan to vote for Ms Harris but neither of them are sold on her, with Mr Guth saying she is “not the best” candidate and Mr Mosser wanting to “know more about her”.
They have also heard little about her running mate Tim Walz, the Minnesota Governor chosen by Ms Harris to help with white working class voters in places like Pennsylvania.
“We’re kind of treading water right now. We have 100 days to decide,” Mr Mosser says.
If Mr Trump wins, Mrs Kovall worries it will affect the future of her grandkids. Her husband says he had planned to “drop out of everything” in the community if he won in 2020.
“But I think that’s not the answer either. We’ll carry on no matter what, and hopefully he’ll only be there for four years, if that,” Mr Kovall says.
“I’m more worried about the people that follow him – if that’s the type of country we’re going to be, I’ll have to make that decision as it comes.”
And if Mr Trump loses, Ms Bartley says: “The country’s done. There’s going to be a great depression, there’s going to be less jobs, there’s more immigrants coming in taking our American jobs. What are we going to do?”
On the other side of the world from the City of Churches, Mr Richey has an answer for that: “Pray for us. Pray for America.”
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Originally published as United Mates: What US town of Adelaide thinks of Trump v Harris
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