Can Trump squeeze more from his base?

OLYPHANT, PA. » President Donald Trump’s narrowing path to victory in Pennsylvania, and the country, runs through small towns such as Olyphant, where Dave Mitchko’s street might be quieter, if not for the large sign he put on his front lawn urging supporters of the president to honk when they pass.

Trump signs are Mitchko’s thing, and his front yard has become something of an informal sign depot for Republicans in greater northeastern Pennsylvania. He estimates that he’s given away more than 26,000 signs this year. And his efforts were rewarded by the campaign with tarmac invitations for recent visits to the region by both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as well as a spot driving in the presidential motorcade. Mitchko wore a suit and a Trumpian red tie for the occasion.

“Your area — this has always been a Democrat area, and yet the votes for Trump here are through the roof,”

Trump bragged that August day.

Trump was right. Mitchko was among the defectors. A 53- year- old lifelong Democrat who used to work at the local compact disc factory, which has since shuttered, and who had a lawn care business until health troubles put him on disability, he voted twice for Barack Obama. For 2020, he registered as a Republican for the first time.

“I opened my Mitchko explained.

With Trump trailing Joe Biden in Pennsylvania in nearly every poll — a New York Times/ Siena College survey last week showed Trump behind by 7 percentage points — voter registration trends have stood out as a rare bright spot for Republicans in one of the nation’s most important battleground states. Since Election Day 2016, Republicans have shrunk the Democratic advantage in Pennsylvania by nearly 200,000 voters, from just more than 916,000 to just more than 717,000 — all in a state that Trump won in 2016 by fewer eyes,” than 45,000 votes.

Many of those gains have been made in smaller, more rural and mostly white counties. The great unknown is how much of that movement consists of ancestral Democrats such as Mitchko who voted for Trump in 2016, formalizing their departure from the party, and how much is fresh erosion.

Olyphant was once “solid blue,” Mitchko said. “But it’s definitely cracked now.” Across the street, his neighbor, who said he had recently switched to become a Republican, was packing his truck for a cornhole tournament and bringing along his 4- by- 8- foot Trump sign.

As Trump’s disregard for science and health guidelines during the pandemic has increasingly repelled college- educated white voters, the president’s last refuge and perhaps best hope is to maximize the turnout of working- class white voters, including former Democrats such as Mitchko, whose regular Facebook postings showcase his full embrace of the culture wars of the Trump era.

What makes Pennsylvania and its trove of 20 Electoral College votes particularly alluring to the Trump campaign is just how many registered white voters there are who are not collegeeducated and who did not cast ballots in 2016 but could do so this year.

That number is about 2.4 million, according to Dave Wasserman, an elections analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report who studies demographic data. Comparatively, he estimated that only about 500,000 college- educated white voters in Pennsylvania failed to cast ballots in 2016.

“The potential for Trump to crank up the intensity of turnout among noncollege whites is quite high,” Wasserman said.

According to his model, that demographic broke 2- 1 for Trump in 2016: 2 million backed Trump, and 1 million voted for Hillary Clinton.

Now, Wasserman said, “There is a level of cultural attachment to Trump in places that voted for him last time that exceeds 2016.”