Monessen, Pennsylvania, doesn’t get many presidential visits.
But on June 28, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump reached the old town of the steel mill and promised that he would recover steel, coal and working-class jobs from a bygone era.
This is what some electorates had hoped for decades to hear, especially the blue-collar staff in Monessen who were still talking about how the Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel mill had helped build the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Like many ancient Rust Belt cities in southwestern Pennsylvania, there is more nostalgia in Monessen than jobs. Closed department stores still line many streets, reminiscent of the Monessen network.
Wheeling-Pittsburgh once hired more than 2,000 workers, and Monessen once housed more than 20,000 people; now the population is about a third of that. The average source of household income is approximately $27,000.
On this June day of 4 years ago, Trump changed his own slogan from the “Make America Big Again” crusade for a changed slogan.
“We’re going to make America rich again,” Trump told Alumisource, a recycling plant that was once Wheeling-Pittsburgh’s metal and employs about 35 people. “It will be American metal that will make our skyscrapers leap into the sky. “
A crowd of about 200 people saw in Alumisource and thousands more saw at home, as all trump stops were covered through cable news networks.
“I thought he was pretty smart,” said Carl Domito, a 78-year-old Trump supporter and a retired Westmoreland County employee watching from home. “I think he said what many other people were waiting to hear. He won my vote that day. “
Monessen remains a Democrat in the county town of Westmoreland, but the rest of the county has turned red since Trump’s election.
In 2016, Democrats had a merit of 10,000 voters. Four years later, Republicans have a merit of 10,000 voters, adding thousands of men who have switched parties to the president.
Much of Trump’s appeal among men is his promise to get jobs back, according to Peter Navarro, director of industrial and production policy at the White House.
Four years ago at Monessen, Trump said Democrat Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA and China’s access to the World Trade Organization, two policies that he said killed middle elegance and moved American jobs abroad.
“The legacy of Pennsylvania metallurgists lies in the bridges, railroads and skyscrapers that make up our wonderful American landscape,” Trump said. “But our loyalty has been rewarded with treason. “
Trump repeats that message this year when he visits the former Pennsylvania factories, now blaming his 2020 Democratic rival, Joe Biden.
This time, Trump is focusing less on the coal and metal industries, which continue to lose jobs; instead, he leads Pennsylvania’s power fighter over hydraulic fracturing, which Biden says he must ban. Biden on a pre-trial crusade in Pittsburgh this month said he needed to ban hydraulic fracturing.
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Navarro, in an interview with the U. S. Pennsylvania Capitol. TODAY, he said Trump kept the promises he made four years ago when he unveiled his homework plan at Monessen.
Biden voted for NAFTA. He voted for China’s inclusion in the World Trade Organization,” Navarro said. “These two have caused the bleeding of thousands of factories and millions of production jobs. “
Trump’s economy created jobs before the pandemic, but since then 4. 7 million jobs have been lost, according to the US Department of Labor. But it’s not the first time
Trump now has the biggest drop in duties of any president in history, however, Navarro affects the economy before the coronavirus.
He recalls the tax cuts, deregulation, accumulation in the defense budget, and industry agreements that, he said, led to an era of prosperity.
“There were traditionally low unemployment rates, which added to blacks, Hispanics, veterans, women,” Navarro said. “That’s our plan. “
COVID-19 frustrated this plan.
“We had to block the economy, we are fighting to come back,” he said.
This includes manufacturing non-public protective equipment, vaccines and swabs in the United States.
And the selection is transparent, Navarro said.
“Biden likes the “made in China, ” he said. Trump” made in America. “
Moreover, “I don’t forget the Obama presidency”: why the debate between Trump and Biden is vital in Pennsylvania.
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Trump is wasting floor on every poll in Pennsylvania, but he still gets his top productive ratings in the economy, and his top confidence lies among white working-class men 50 years and older in southwest and northeastern Pennsylvania.
Bill Woodward, an 82-year-old retired telephone employee in Bucks County, is one of the voters.
He voted for Democrats in his youth, voted for Republicans for decades.
Woodward would vote for Trump “no doubt. “
“Just take a look at what you’ve done for the stock market,” Woodward said. “Democrats only need more government and more taxes. It would be a crisis for the country. “
Another crisis the Democratic opinion on the pandemic, he said.
“Stopping America is completely wrong,” Woodward said. ” Trump didn’t need to close America, and I congratulate him on that. The president did an intelligent task with the pandemic opposed to all disputes. “
If Trump wins Pennsylvania again, it will be thanks to the strong of older men, analysts say.
That includes men who used to vote for Democrats, but who have voted for Republicans for more than 10 years.
“They felt abandoned across the Democratic Party, economically and culturally,” said Terry Madonna, Franklin’s pollster and political scientist.
That electorate’s largest demographic helped Trump win the state’s steepest corner, Beaver, Fayette, Washington, Westmoreland, and Greene counties.
Found Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, reliably voted a Democrat, as did Philadelphia.
But Trump beat Erie, who had voted for Obama four years earlier, and lost Scranton by a few thousand votes.
“Trump will probably live or die politically from the economy,” Madonna said. “You’ll have to convince the workers that you’ve made things better. “
Biden’s supporters are not as involved with the promises Trump made before the coronavirus created a new normal.
They have the biggest promise that has not been kept.
“He never made America wonderful again,” said Cheryl Gregorio, a 63-year-old retiree from Luzerne County, “not even close. “
Highlights include the biggest public fitness crisis in a hundred years that Pennsylvania has closed for months; racial injustice and the protests that have taken over the streets of the city; the news constant that raises more questions than answers about the president’s character and judgment, adding recently revealed data about his tax records.
Gregory will vote for Biden this year because he is in favor of a decent civilian candidate to “bring peace to the country. “
Sarah Eagan, a 23-year-old county resident and press manager for NextGen America in Pennsylvania, said Biden was a better choice for her and other young voters.
The problems that matter most to them are health care, schools, and racial equity and justice.
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“The more we learn about Biden, the more we like it and believe that at least he is willing to pay attention to the things that are for us,” Eagan said. “Trump doesn’t seem willing to pay attention. “
Biden is also the choice for the elderly, according to Addie Hickson, a Philadelphia resident and black voter in his 80s.
“Trump has been a disaster,” he said. I hope Biden can get us out of this mess. “
Hickson voted by mail in the Pennsylvania primary, plans to go to his polling station in Philadelphia and vote for the user on Election Day.
“There’s a lot at stake, ” he said. Let him know that my vote counts immediately. “
Hickson told everyone he saw that “it’s better for them to vote this time,” he said. “With coronavirus and racism, our lives count on it. “
The Pennsylvania Women for Biden/Harris Facebook organization has 116,000 members who say similar things every day.
“If Biden wins the election, it will be behind the backs of Pennsylvania women,” said Jesse White, a Democratic strata teacher at Perpetual Fortitude, a Harrisburg consulting firm.
Two new surveys published Tuesday show Biden with a 9-point lead in Pennsylvania, largely thanks to the women in suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia.
Biden appealed to voters with giant margins due to control of Trump’s coronavirus and the rapid appointment of the federal ruling on Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court vacuum left by the recent death of Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Clinton had a smaller advantage at this point in the race four years ago and smoothly won the Philadelphia suburbs in 2016, adding Republican women, but that wasn’t enough to make up for Trump’s profits in Rust Belt counties.
This trend in the electorate continued in 2018 in a so-called pink wave that sent 110 to the House and Senate of the United States, adding 4 of the Congress of Pennsylvania.
More: Pennsylvania woman elected to Congress in 2018 pink wave in position to shape Trump’s fate
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“College-educated women voted in large numbers in 2016 and 2018, and in 2018 they were one of the main reasons Democrats opposed seats,” Madonna said.
“These are one of Pennsylvania’s largest electoral blocs, and they elect Democrats,” he said.
Madonna expects this to continue in November.
Chris Borick, professor of political science and director of the Institute for Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College, said school-educated women are a vital constituency to reckon with.
In Pennsylvania, where 44,000 votes divided applicants in 2016, each and every vote counts, he said.
But analysts agree that women can be the largest voting organization in Pennsylvania, which FiveThirtyEight says will be the turning point for the 2020 election won through Biden.
“Pennsylvania women will have a vital role to play in deciding which of these men will win the presidency,” Borick said.
Candy Woodall is a USA Today reporter. You can contact him at 717-480-1783 or on Twitter at @candynotcandace.
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