Joe Biden must win Pennsylvania from Donald Trump as Americans in Scranton are divided
This is the stage for one of the US election’s toughest battles – a must-win county in a must-win state for both parties — where Americans are divided between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
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The former coal mining city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is best known for two things: the setting for the US version of longrunning sitcom The Office, and as the birthplace of Joe Biden, potentially America’s 46th president.
It’s also the stage for one of the upcoming election’s toughest battles – a must-win county in a must-win state for both parties, and as such has already been treated to an array of visits from each campaign.
The last political circus to roll-on through was the Trump 2020 team. The president and troller-in-chief headed to the nearby town of Old Forge on Thursday to remind locals how many of their jobs were at risk from the Democrats.
And also to sink in the boot about Mr Biden, who just hours later was going to accept the Democratic nomination for president.
“So tonight, we have … Slow Joe will speak at the Democrat convention. And I’m sure he’ll just knock ‘em dead. And “I think you people know it better than I do. He left,” he said to cheers from the crowd.
Winning the previous Democrat stronghold of Pennsylvania is widely seen as having delivered 2016 to Mr Trump and many commentators describe it as 2020s most crucial battleground.
Mr Trump is closing on Mr Biden statewide in polls, trailing by about seven points on average, on Friday, after being behind by as much as 13 points this time last month, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Lackawanna County, with Scranton at its centre, didn’t actually go Trump’s way in 2016, but there was a hefty swing and it’s well on its way to turning red this year. Second only to the state’s biggest city of Philadelphia in voters, it’s one of several rural areas Mr Biden is going to need.
But talking to locals last week, it seemed like Democrats might be suffering here from the same problem they have across much of the country: a complete lack of enthusiasm for their candidate.
This combined with fears that he is not the right person to lead them out of America’s COVID-produced economic hole are making a bet for Mr Trump look better each day.
Restaurant manager Denise Leppo is confident Scranton is going to regain the vibrant economy it had built over the past four years but which has recently been wiped out by the pandemic.
“It’s bad now, of course. I think we’ve had more people looking for work over the past six months than we’ve ever had, but I know it’s going to come back,” says Ms Leppo, 47, outside the Downtown Deli and Eatery.
Ms Leppo will vote for Mr Biden in November because she believes he’s a more decent person, but she knows many of her friends and family members will support his opponent.
“It’s funny because the owner of this restaurant is different. We both want the same things, everyone really in the end does want the same basic things,” she said.
“I don’t know why it’s so divided now. It’s not even close to being where you could sit and have a conversation because it’s a very hot topic.”
Federal prosecutor and father of two Todd Hinkely, 55, says the mood in Scranton is similar to 2016, and that this probably wasn’t showing in polling because of what’s known as the hidden Trump vote.
“The people I talked to, many of them would not talk to someone like you and say ‘I support President Trump. They’re very hesitant to do that for a number of reasons,” said Mr Hinkley, who will vote for Mr Trump in November.
“I think people are supportive of Trump who are not saying so publicly. And I think that probably at the end of the day, when they go in to vote, that’s going to be reflected.”
Mr Hinkley said he believed the county would vote with trying to recapture the “renaissance” the area had experienced over the past four years, driven in large part by the fortunes made from large-scale opening of fracking in the state.
“There’s been a lot of money that’s been pumped into the economy here by the gas industry,” he says.
“A lot of folks who own land are (mining) royalty owners. And those moneys are put into savings accounts with the local banks and also spent locally with merchants as well as construction of homes and things like that.”
Mr Hinkley said a lot of locals were worried by a primary debate statement by Mr Biden that he would “eliminate” fossil fuels. The Biden campaign has since said their agenda is to not issue any more fracking licences and to phase out the existing ones.
“One of the things that Mr Biden has indicated, that he wants to eliminate the fracking industry, which would not be good economically for this area,” he said.
Many argue that the Democrats have picked the wrong candidate – too old, too moderate, too white and middle class – and that this is what is behind the lack of excitement about him.
Project designer Sean Ritter, 26, said he would vote Democrat, but that he wasn’t inspired by his choices and was more focused on local politics than the national stage because parts of the process were “a joke”.
“I will vote for Biden, I’m tired of the mockery going on in this country,” he said.
“You know, Biden might not be any better, but I think we say that about literally every single presidential election. You know, we have to choose between these two people. And they might not be better than each other.
Over in Old Forge, four hours before Mr Trump was to arrive in the hardscrabble mining town, there was no shortage of enthusiasm from his supporters lining the streets.
A DJ was blaring a mix of ACDC and country hits as colourfully clad Trump supporters cheered every passing car, many of them hooting back. As a train blasted through the nearby rail crossing, the beaming conductor leaned out of the front carriage, pumped his fist and yelled something we couldn’t hear over the music and the screeching engine.
Among the crowd were Candice and Stephen Chilek, from nearby West Princeton. Mr Chilek said he had briefly lived in Brisbane establishing a sustainable energy company but since his return to the US he had to move out of the sector.
“Well the Obama administration ruined the energy industry, so I don’t work in that anymore,” he said.
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“Now I’m at Proctor and Gamble. We make all the paper products, toilet paper, you know, like you can’t in the stores. We’re doing well now.”
Theatrics aside, Lance Stange, who has been chairman of the Lackawanna Republican Party since 2010 is predicting a better result than 2016, when they almost took the Democrat seat for the first time
“President Trump only lost by 3.48 per cent in this county here, the second most Democratic county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” he says.
Rattling off an array of figures by rote that he says show local Democrats are at their “lowest point in voter registration in over 20 years” he says he’s had more than a thousand defections in the past month.
He echoes Mr Trump’s description of Mr Biden as having no real connection to Scranton given he left before he was a teenager, adding that Democrats don’t even have a field office in Lackawanna County.
“I feel like politicians sometimes use us here. They come here and use Pennsylvania as a prop to try and establish their blue collar working class credentials. But you know I don’t feel that he’s really earned it here.”