Trump Won Pennsylvania. Democrats Want the State (and His Voters) Back.
CONWAY, Pa. — The rules are workable enough in the right hands, in the right corner of a right-leaning region of a state like this one.
Avoid the jacket-and-tie look, so voters — wary enough of Democrats — do not think they are looking at a Jehovah’s Witness. “That happened,” recalled Representative Conor Lamb, now in a polo shirt.
Pivot to safe subjects. After a local here loudly mocked the idea of “Russian collusion” with President Trump to a peer, Mr. Lamb, 34, moved in to introduce himself, telling the man (who said he was Russian) about falling in love with Russian cuisine when he was in the Marines.
And if all else fails — and it will, often — there is always prayer.
“I was reading a little Isaiah this morning,” Mr. Lamb said at a town festival recently, approaching Paul Strano, 69, whose hat read, “F.B.I.: Firm Believer In Jesus.” The two bowed their heads.
“A man of faith, backing the party of abortion, homosexual promotion,” Mr. Strano, a Trump supporter, said afterward. “But the man sold himself.” Mr. Lamb had his vote.
In his 2016 victory, Mr. Trump swiped several states that Democrats had assumed were theirs: Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida. But perhaps no outcome matched the psychic toll of losing Pennsylvania, where the past Democratic coalition of city-dwelling liberals, racial minorities and white working-class voters in union towns had long defined the party’s identity as a big-tent enterprise.
Two years later, a return to power — winning the House in November, winning the presidency in 2020 — will hinge in large measure on how effectively Democrats can peel off voters who migrated to Mr. Trump. The challenge is real: Unemployment in the state is below 5 percent, and Mr. Trump’s approval rating, while underwater over all in Pennsylvania, remains high among the Republicans who populate districts like Mr. Lamb’s. But in candidates like him and others across the state, national Democratic officials believe they have found a model, with a curious signature feature: Democrats in no rush to remind certain audiences that they are Democrats.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/politics/pennsylvania-democrats-trump.html?
= new reply since forum marked as read
At least a few counties were flipped, some of the machines were hacked. We need to meet this head-on and resolve to never let it happen again.
Our state should be voting on PAPER BALLOTS only, until we can be assured of the security of our elections.
