Rural Pennsylvania voters don't hate Biden as much as they hated Clinton, and Trump may need them to

[RandySF]

That’s hardly a ringing endorsement. But the less-than-hostile attitude expressed by voters like Pristas, and the tepid support from voters like Szekeresh, point to a significant difference between 2016 and 2020: In the rural areas of Pennsylvania where Trump draws his strongest and most resilient support, his opponent this time simply isn’t loathed like last time.

And that could make all the difference for Biden in places like Cambria County, where Trump won more votes than any presidential candidate in decades. In doing so, he shattered longtime Pennsylvania GOP orthodoxy holding that the party needed to be reasonably competitive in areas like the Philadelphia s Polls and interviews with about 20 voters in Cambria County last month show Trump retains deep support in a region that was anchored for much of the 20th century by steel and coal industries but has struggled to find a postindustrial identity.

The president’s supporters praise his forceful opposition to illegal immigration, his confrontation with China on trade, and his emphasis on “law and order.” They call him a fighter and express dismay about a future without him in the White House.

“Trump has to win," said Joseph Juretic, 69, a retired union electrical worker who lives in Johnstown. “Trump is holding the line as far as trade, the economy, the pandemic, all the riots." uburbs to win statewide.




https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/rural-pennsylvania-voters-trump-biden-clinton-20201004.html#loaded

[Stand and Fight]

1. I'm so fucking sick of being told we need to scrap the bottom of the barrel...

I'm so fucking sick of being told we need to scrap the bottom of the barrel and cater to the stupidiest sons-of-bitches in the world. If these fuckers are still supporting Trump at this point, after his failure handling the corona virus, his failure to bring back jobs to their hick towns, and his utter failure on his much talked about Mexico-is-gonna-pay-for-it wall... Well, then we need to stop trying to win these morons over.

[Amishman]

2. There are more than enough of them that we lose when they unify

And Republicans are gaining in voter registration in PA

[maxrandb]

3. I'm sick of the media "romanticizing" these inbred, toothless hayseed

Star Member maxrandb
I'm tired of hearing about "Dems not talking to rural America"
While I appreciate the message that "Dems need to talk to rural America", and I'm thankful that, on rare occasions, a State with more cows than people will send a Democrat to the Senate, I'm tired of this mythical "Dems need to reach out to rural America".

I want to say "Fuck" a thousand times, because I'm about fed up to my latte drinking ass with this fucking "Dems need to talk to rural Murika" bullshit.

All this fucking country has been doing, EVEN 200 years before it was a country, has been talking to and catering to these white rural areas .

We can't even get a fucking Post Office in Columbus Ohio named without first considering how it impacts rural America!

I would not be so fucking pissed about this, if just ONCE since the creation of this country, ANYONE had suggested that "rural America needs to talk to urban America ...JUST ONCE!

Maybe rural America should visit some inner city schools, with their delapidated buildings, broken desks, faulty electrical and broken windows.

Maybe rural America should come over and share a few pitchers of water with a Flint Michigan Family.

Maybe rural America should visit some poverty stricken areas of the city and, when they ask why people live there, they can find out that for 400 years, Banks and Real Estate Agents have "redlined" them into those areas and told them this is the ONLY place they were welcome.

Maybe rural America can visit an area of 20,000 that doesn't have access to fresh produce and groceries within 10 miles. Not by choice because they want to "live out in the country", but because the stores are all in the "good areas" of town.

Maybe rural America should sit down with that waitress serving $60 Steaks for 12 hours a day for minimum wage, who then has to drive an UBER for 4 more hours so she can afford her 400 Square Foot Walk-up and childcare for her kid.

Maybe the problem ISN'T that "Dems aren't talking to rural America". Maybe the problem is rural America doesn't give one fuck about anything but rural America .

Why is this always only a one-way street?

Why do I see thousands of these "Dems need to reach out to rural America" stories, but never even one "Retrumplicans need to reach out to urban America" stories.

Why is urban America expected to "understand" and "empathize" with rural America, but that expectation is NEVER reversed.

Is rural America the only ones that have a story to tell?

Are they ever asked to "understand" where 65% of Americans live?

Do we ever go to the corn farmer and ask him, or her, to understand what the Taco Truck owner in Los Angeles has to deal with?

Of course not.

Why would rural America ever give a shit about urban America when they're NEVER asked to?

[moose65]

4. That is powerful stuff

Well said! You have articulated your thoughts perfectly!

[DFW]

6. One possible reason: we travel. They don't.

If you travel, you realize you are not the center of the universe.

If you never travel, you think yours is the only universe.

[luv2fly]

11. Yeah sometimes

When THEY travel, they are the ones standing in the middle of Paris in their plaid shorts, MAGA hat, bright white tennies and stained tshirt screaming "Why doesn't anyone speak English here?"

[DFW]

12. Don't I know it. I see them every week here.

Faces staring into their cell phones, hardly a glance at their real surroundings, eating at Burger King when they have the cuisines of the world all withing 100 meters of where they are standing.

[DFW]

5. The willful ignorance of these people is beyond comprehension

“Trump is holding the line as far as trade, the economy, the pandemic, all the riots."

He is doing NONE OF THAT, and yet these people convince themselves that somehow he is, too, and they won't give Joe Biden the time of day, even though Biden is one of THEM, and knows where they are coming from better than Trump ever will or care to.

[Raster]

7. Two words: Fox News*

Two more: echo chamber

[Cosmocat]

8. Right?

They simply live in an alternative world.

[MyOwnPeace]

9. Absolutely correct!

With each: TRADE - ECONOMY - PANDEMIC - RIOTS - he has made them WORSE!!!!!!

We don't care what the 40% chose to do - ALL we need to do is GET OUT THE VOTE!!!!!!!

[beachbumbob]

10. biden doesn't have the bggage that Hillary had, so the "clinton haters" are defused and of course

we have near 4 years of watching trump. The past 5 days so far has done more damage to GOP and Trump than anything we could possibly hope for.

[DeminPennswoods]

13. If you remember Johnstown as a thriving steel town,

you'd be shocked to see it today. It is astonishingly run down. It makes my beat down former mill town hometown look properous by comparison.

[Solly Mack]

14. Who needs horror movies when there are Trump supporters?