US election 2020: Could history really repeat itself?

Four years ago, I was watching Hillary Clinton’s final campaign rally that was more of a coronation. We know how it ended.

Donald Trump was expected to lose to Hillary Clinton just as he is expected to lose to Joe Biden this year.

Could history repeat itself in America? Four years ago, on the eve of the US election, I was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, watching Hillary Clinton’s final campaign rally.

It was not so much a rally as it was a coronation of the soon-to-be President Clinton, or so they thought. Bruce Springsteen sang, as did Bon Jovi. Barack and Michelle Obama gave speeches as did Bill and Chelsea Clinton. More than 50,000 supporters cheered them on and sang along with The Boss in front of the historic Independence Hall, birthplace of the nation.

Hillary Clinton was just 3.2 points up in the polls but most serious pundits didn’t seriously think she would lose, especially to someone like Donald Trump.

So where was Trump on that night? He had been gaining on Clinton in the polls for the previous week but he was still behind and was holding a blitz of rallies around the country just like he is now. On that same night as Clinton was being prematurely crowned, Trump was 200kms to the north, holding a rally in the gritty, working class town of Scranton in northern Pennsylvania

Trump chose his target well – Hillary Clinton’s father Hugh Rodham was born in Scranton and was buried in the cemetery, while her grandfather once toiled in the town’s lace mills.

The next day Trump shocked the Clinton campaign by winning not just Pennsylvania but the election. Many residents of Scranton were among those traditional Democrats who had turned to Trump. He found his “Forgotten People’ in that once-staunch Democrat stronghold and stole them away.

Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Avoca, Pennsylvania. Picture: AFP.

Four years on, Trump has again chosen to hold a rally in Scranton on the eve of this election. This time, the town holds the added prize of being the birthplace of his opponent Joe Biden.

Biden, although he left at the age of ten, has used Scranton in his stump speech to boast of his lower middle class class roots and appeal to the workers in Rust Belt towns like Scranton.

“Trump thinks Wall Street built this country, that’s who he looks out for,’ Biden said campaigning in Pennsylvania Tuesday (AEDT). “ I see the world from Scranton, from working towns in Pennsylvania.”

For years you had a President who apologized for America – now you have a President who is standing up for America, and standing up for PENNSYLVANIA. Tomorrow, you have the power, with your vote, to save AMERICA! GET OUT AND VOTE!! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/Sx0PBaplkJ

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2020

Except that on election eve, it is Trump who has gone back to Scranton just like he did in 2016. Meanwhile Biden is holding an election-eve drive-in rally in Pittsburgh, not with The Boss or Bon Jovi, but with Lady Gaga.

All this, at a time when Trump has momentum and has narrowed the gap in the key battleground states in recent days, including in Pennsylvania where he trails by just 2.9 points. Both the Trump and Biden campaigns believe that winning the Keystone state opens up a path to the White House.

So as Biden enjoys Lady Gaga’s performance, just as Clinton did with The Boss, Trump was back in Scranton on Tuesday (AEDT) trying to ensure that history repeats itself.

But perhaps the Biden campaign has woken up to these spooky parallels. Suddenly, on Tuesday (AEDT) the Biden campaign announced that he would make an eleventh hour surprise visit to Scranton on Election Day, something that Hillary Clinton didn’t bother to do.

This time it will be harder for Trump to repeat history. Despite his late rally in the polls, he is still the underdog to win both Pennsylvania and the election. Then again, that’s what they said on election eve in 2016, during Hillary’s premature coronation.

(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia)