Andrew Seidman: Rural Pennsylvania voters don't hate Biden as much as they hated Clinton, and Trump may need them to
And Biden? "He's OK," Szekeresh said. "It's just, we need a change and a new president, that's all."
That's hardly a ringing endorsement. But the less-than-hostile attitude expressed by voters like Pristas, and the tepid support from voters like Szekeresh, point to a significant difference between 2016 and 2020: In the rural areas of
And that could make all the difference for Biden in places like
Polls and interviews with about 20 voters in
"Trump has to win," said
"If Biden gets in," he added, "it's all gonna fall apart."
But Biden doesn't generate the kind of intense, visceral opposition many voters held -- and still hold -- for Clinton.
Two polls of
Trump's announcement Friday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus added new uncertainty to the race, and at a minimum was likely to keep the pandemic at the forefront of a campaign in which he's tried to focus on just about anything else.
Analysts and strategists in both parties see
The same electoral pattern played out in dozens of rural counties and small towns across the state in 2016, totaling tens of thousands of votes Trump got that Romney and previous
Biden's challenge in rural areas can be boiled down to this: Don't get crushed as badly as Clinton did. He took an Amtrak train tour Wednesday through Trump-friendly parts of
Many
"We're so economically depressed here, and unfortunately racism has existed here just as it has in every part of the nation," said
It wasn't long ago that
After Murtha died in 2010, the city erected a seven-foot bronze statue of him downtown.
Registered
The poverty rate in this city of 19,800 is 38.7%, triple the statewide figure, according to the most recent census estimates.
"When he said 'American carnage,' that hit me right in the belly," Bonk, a Democrat who serves on Biden's
As Bonk and other
As of July, the unemployment rate had doubled to 13.1%.
If you turn on the radio these days in the
"Biden has too many people pulling his strings," Voyda said.
Like much of
Her husband, Mick, 70, suspects his pro-Trump neighbor has been stealing their Biden signs.
"They wanna burn our house down because I'm a Democrat," said
He's casting his first vote for Trump. "He doesn't put up with people's BS," Billetdeaux said.
Plenty of voters have little regard for Biden.
On a Monday afternoon last month, Bender was drinking a Bud Light outside his garage. A truck driver who hauls coal and other freight, he had some time to relax until his next 300-mile haul at
Two big flags welcome visitors out front: one showing Trump standing on a tank, and another in which Trump's face is superimposed over
"Four more years, he can get rid of that swamp there," Bender said.
A former Democrat, he long ago stopped voting for the party's presidential candidates -- though he said Murtha "got a lot done for highways and everything around here."
He chafed at Gov.
He didn't mince words about Biden: "I hated him with Obama and I hate the Clintons."
Bender worries that undocumented immigrants and people on government assistance would get too much money under Biden. "The Lord said you live by the sweat of your brow," he said.
Back in
After the 2016 election, she taped a sign next to her front door that read "PROUD DEMOCRAT."
To limit possible coronavirus exposure, Pettorini only leaves the house to go grocery shopping. As she sat down to talk about the election, she had a lot on her mind: About tyranny taking hold in
"I am so hot about this -- you know what?" Pettorini said, pounding two books she'd fetched from her home. "I swear to God, I'm ready for fisticuffs!"
Every now and then, she sees a glimmer of hope. A woman new to the area recently stopped by to admire Pettorini's plants.
Then, Pettorini recalled, the woman lowered her voice to a whisper to confess: "I like your sign."
___
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