Johnstown crowd readies for President Trump rally

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Supporters began lining up at the John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport 10 hours in advance of the campaign rally scheduled to being at 7 p.m.

At the nearby Galleria Mall, where many shops are closed, dozens of vendors gathered in the parking lot hawking Trump regalia, ranging from T-shirts and caps to flags and buttons.

Back at the airport, a pick-up truck bearing Biden flags, an effigy of the president and the message "215,000 dead, covid-19," circled the facility repeatedly.

Just inside the airport grounds, anti-abortion activist Tom Venditti of Johnstown held a 5-foot-tall banner. The sign featured an image of Jesus. It read "Abortion kills his children" and implored the U.S. Senate to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

As supporters filled the grandstands set up outside an airport hangar, U.S. Rep. John Joyce, R-Blair County, reminded the group that awaited of the president's promises to the economically struggling region.

"President Trump wants to bring jobs to Bedford, not Beijing. He wants to bring jobs to Somerset, not Shanghai," Joyce said, as the group erupted in cheers. "Let me repeat this in Johnstown: We are the steel curtain behind President Donald J. Trump."

Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, who frames the election as a choice between Park Avenue and small town America, repeated his claim Tuesday.

"Over the last four years, President Trump has only looked out for big corporations and the super wealthy like those on Park Avenue, and has failed to protect Pennsylvanians from the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic," Biden said. "As president, I will fight for the workers and families in Johnstown who are tired of President Trump's broken promises and failed leadership. I will bring good-paying union jobs to communities like Johnstown, raise wages, and create economic opportunity for all Pennsylvanians."

Trump's visit to the storied steel town in Pennsylvania's mountains marked the second time a presidential candidate has held a rally in the city of 20,000 in as many weeks. Biden greeted supporters at the Johnstown train station the night of Sept. 30.

Those rallies underscore the battle for Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes, which Trump won by 44,000 votes out of more than 6 million cast in 2016. Although Trump lost in Philadelphia and Allegheny County, his margins in rural Pennsylvania offset those loses.

Pennsylvania is one of several states expected to play a crucial role in the 2020 election. The president campaigned in early September at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity and at a Pittsburgh airport hangar Sept. 22, and Vice President Mike Pence stopped at the Murrysville GOP Victory Center to talk to voters on a campaign swing through Westmoreland and Beaver counties last month.

Like Westmoreland, Cambria County supported Trump in 2016. He carried the county by 37 points even though Democrats then held a significant registration edge there.

That edge recently flipped, with the GOP now holding a slight lead in registration.

Joseph Melusky, a political scientist at nearby St. Francis University in Loretto, said Trump's base is ardent in the region once rich in coal mines and steel mills.

"They see someone who is a fighter. What he's fighting for objectively is less important than that he's fighting," Melusky said. "'Make America Great Again' means different things to different people. In the case of Cambria County, you can understand a yearning for the way things were."

Matt Leamer, of Hastings, a coal miner at the Enlow Fork Mine in Greene County, sported a Border Wall T-shirt at the rally. The tall, burly miner said he's supported the president who has repeatedly spoken out for coal country, from day one.

"I'm for less government regulation," Leamer said. "I like his whole platform."

While Trump campaign signs are visible in lawns on back roads and streets in Johnstown and communities across the region, Biden supporters quietly have asserted their presence.

In nearby Ebensburg, Helen Whiteford, chair of the Cambria County Democratic Committee, said a group of local Biden supporters bought a billboard proclaiming "Ebensburg for Biden."

"People were calling the police and borough council saying the sign didn't speak for them," Whiteford said. "But the borough didn't pay for it; local people raised money on their own."

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .

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