DEMOCRATS IN TRUMP COUNTRY NO LONGER SHY ABOUT LIKING BIDEN
SURGE IN ENTHUSIASM REFLECTS URGENCY OF ELECTION FOR US DEMOCRATS DESPERATE TO OUST TRUMP
When Vicki Simon passes the rare fellow Biden supporter in her small town in western Pennsylvania, she quietly flashes a covert hand signal.
“There’s a secret society of us,” said Simon, 54, of Scottdale, Pennsylvania. “We give each other the peace sign.”
Standing near Simon as they waited to catch a glimpse of Joe Biden in nearby Latrobe recently, Mike Sherback, 55, said that he, too, was not typically outspoken about his political views. The two cited the vocal Trump supporters in their conservative communities who sometimes shout down dissenters.
“The Biden supporters don’t like to come out as Trump supporters do,” Sherback said. “Usually I wouldn’t do this, either. But it’s the biggest election in my lifetime. He needs the support because the Trump people, Trump supporters, show their support whether through radical ways or not.”
Standing up against divisive campaign
As a divisive presidential campaign enters the final stretch, there is evidence that some Democrats deep in Trump country — the kind of voters who avoided political discussions with their neighbours, tried to ignore Facebook debates and in some cases, sat out the last election— suddenly aren’t feeling so shy. It’s a surge in enthusiasm that reflects the urgency of the election for Democrats desperate to oust President Donald Trump, one that could have significant implications for turnout in closely fought battleground states that the president won in 2016.
No one expects Westmoreland County, which includes Latrobe and Scottdale, to flip to Democratic control after Trump won it bymore than 30 percentage points in 2016. And no one doubts the passion of the president’s supporters in counties like this across Pennsylvania and the industrial Midwest.
The question is whether Democrats in counties like Westmoreland are engaged enough this year to prevent Trump from recreating his overwhelming 2016 margins of victory in white working- class areas, the kind of support that compensated for his losses in cities and suburbs elsewhere last time. If Biden can reduce Trump’s support in these regions while producing even bigger numbers in the suburbs and cities than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, Trump’s path becomes all the more difficult.
“Even if we just cut the margin,” Biden said on his recent train tour through eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, “it makes a gigantic difference.”
Biden’s moment
The extent to which Biden can achieve that goal is uncertain in a highly polarised environment, but pollsters, Democrats and some Republicans on the ground say there are also unmistakable signs of more Democratic energy this year.
Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said: “Many of these so- called shy Biden voters, who haven’t been talking about it before, are also the voters, the Democratic voters, who stayed home four years ago and now regret it,” he added.
Biden has been working aggressively to engage just those voters — and to court their neighbours who feel uneasy about their past support of Trump. On Saturday, he campaigned in Erie, Pennsylvania, in a county that supported Trump after going for President Barack Obama and Biden in 2012. On Monday, he visited Ohio, a state that some Democrats have spent the past four years writing off but that polls show may now be up for grabs.
It’s the biggest election in my lifetime. [ Biden] needs the support because the Trump people, Trump supporters, show their support...”
Mike Sherback | Pennsylvania resident
30% The lead by which Trump won in 2016 in Westmoreland County,