TRUMP IN TOWN
Thousands wait in milelong line for rally at Lehigh Valley fairgrounds
The long line stretched well beyond the gate to enter the Schnecksville Fire Company fairgrounds.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump didn’t mind braving the elements Saturday — cold, wind and sometimes rain — to show support for Trump, who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden but is once again the presumptive nominee on the Republican side ahead of November’s election.
Along with Lehigh Valley residents, attendees came from New Jersey, New York and Illinois, among other places. Some arrived before sunrise Saturday to wait for the gate to open around 3 p.m.
Judy Pezzuto of Bushkill Township and Susan Maxwell of Effort, Monroe County, said they were the first to arrive about 5 a.m. Both women said they support Trump in part for his support of small businesses. Maxwell also said the tax cuts Trump signed into law helped her small business.
“If we don’t get a new president, we’re all going to be broke,” Pezzuto said, noting the economy under Biden’s leadership. “Inflation is so out of hand; we can’t do this anymore.”
Heather and Joe Marsello of Schnecksville were among those standing in line. Heather Marsello was wearing a dark sweatshirt bearing Biden’s name in pink, capital letters. The rest of the hoodie described the incumbent as a 1-star president and being “very bad and not recommended.”
The couple said they came because having a major candidate like Trump visit their rural community in northern Lehigh County was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Though they only traveled about a mile from their home, they had to wait in a line to enter the fairgrounds that stretched 1-2 miles.
“I’m not a typical Republican, but I am a Trumper,” said Heather Marsello, who marked her 51st birthday Saturday by attending the rally. “I’m a Trumplican, not a Republican.”
Her husband, Joe, said he likes Trump because “he doesn’t back down. When he was in this office, countries respected him, and I don’t think they respect us today.”
On the campaign trail this election cycle, Trump has vowed to roll back environmental regulations, expand deportations and border arrests, and pardon people imprisoned for their involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Fernando Lima of Newark, New Jersey, agrees with Trump’s immigration stance. He said he came to the U.S from Brazil years ago and became a legal American citizen, and he supports Trump’s stance to keep the U.S. borders closed to illegal entrants.
“I don’t want to see it go down the drain by the leftists,” he said of current immigrant policy. “I don’t like the way they are opening the border.”
Stephen Toth of Macungie was one of many vendors selling Trump memorabilia Saturday. Toth, who owns Physical Graffi-tee’s in Allentown, was south of the fairgrounds along Route 309.
“I’m a Trump supporter because of the economy, the gas, the border and we have no respect around the world with Joe Biden,” Toth said.
Earlier Saturday, several people at the Burger King along Route 309, where the marquee invited the former president to stop by, said they supported Trump for his policies.
Ryan Pietkiewicz of Allentown, who was dining with his mother, Caroline, at the Burger King before the rally, expressed many people’s sentiments.
He said he wants Trump to return to the presidency so that the country “can get back on track.”
“I hope he kicks some butt,” Pietkiewicz said. Asked if he meant at the rally or in the election, he said both.
A manager at the Burger King, who said he was not allowed to give his name but stressed he was nonpartisan, thought it would be a playful prank to potentially attract Trump by putting a message on the restaurant’s sign board asking him to “stop in for a Whopper on us.”
The manager said the restaurant owner OK’d putting up the sign and former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf once stopped by and bought the signature Whopper sandwich.
“If Joe Biden were to stop by, he would have the same type of sign,” the manager said.
No protesters could be seen inside or outside the fairgrounds, and state police spokesperson Trooper Nathan Branosky said there were no disturbances as of Saturday evening.
Along Route 309 in neighboring South Whitehall Township, siblings Ken and Kelly Dando stood side by side, with Kelly holding a handmade sign inviting people to a “Traitor Convention” for Trump.
“I consider him to be a traitor,” she said for Trump’s dispensing lies about the 2020 election vote and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
Her brother called Trump “awful for democracy” and an “embarrassment.”
“He’s made us the laughingstock of the whole world, and I think he would be awful for the country if he got back again,” Ken Dando said, while holding a Palestinian flag in support of a cease-fire and protest of the destruction in Gaza, which has been at the center of the Israel-Hamas war.
Saturday’s rally was Trump’s first of the year in the Lehigh Valley, which is expected to be an area of focus for both presidential campaigns as they battle over Pennsylvania, which could cast the deciding votes in the election.
Biden visited the Lehigh Valley in January, touting his economic initiatives with small-business owners in Emmaus and firefighters in Allentown. Biden plans to return to the state Tuesday-Thursday with visits to Scranton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Trump visited the Lehigh Valley twice ahead of the 2020 election. In Lehigh County, Biden defeated Trump by approximately 10,000 votes in 2020 out of more than 185,000 cast, according to results. Biden won the state by about 80,000 votes. A Franklin & Marshall College Poll in early April showed Biden was leading Trump in the 2024 race, but other polls show the two men in a tight contest.