Pennsylvania in play: small towns turning republican
"I don’t get the Democratic Party anymore."
"a traditionally Democratic town off the I-81 corridor has shifted right along with Carbondale, Lackawanna County, and much of northeast Pennsylvania. While Democrats still outnumber Republicans in the state by about 780,000 voters, that edge has narrowed over the last four years as the GOP gained ground in once-safe Democratic bastions in northeast and southwest Pennsylvania. "
“We were always a Democratic town, always ... But the town has become very, very conservative”
"places like Carbondale are trending even more pro-Trump than four years ago."
" “My father was a lifelong Democrat, 46 years in the union, and he said, ‘You’re going to register as a Democrat.’ And I said, ‘OK,’ ” ... Mazza switched this year."
"Many residents work about 20 miles away in Scranton, Joe Biden’s childhood hometown "
“No one talks to each other anymore. Unless it’s on Facebook and then it’s just people attacking one another.”
"Olyphant, like Carbondale, is a former coal town where Democrats are losing voters, including Mitchko. He became a Republican last year, after he and his wife lost their jobs ... the company closed it in 2018 and shifted production to Mexico."
" “They call me fat racist,” Mitchko said, gesturing across the street to the house where Black Lives Matter and Mexican flags hung outside. "
"But even Biden supporters are nervous."
"For some residents here, Biden’s ties to nearby Scranton, which his family left when he was 10, actually make him less appealing."
“If he was crossing the street, I wouldn’t cross it to say hello to him ... What has he done for this region in 40 years in Washington?”
"a dozen Obama-Trump voters in the region, none planned to vote for Biden. Several are former elected Democrats who left the party."
“There are very few people in this area who don’t have a family member or who haven’t themselves had a job go overseas,”
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/carbondale-pennsylvania-trump-biden-2020-election-20200808.htmlI know that region well, Terruso is right, no love for Biden in Scranton.
sidd