Joe Biden’s connection to his hometown of Scranton burns so strongly that he keeps returning to the childhood home where he spent his first decade.
But neighbors on the block are nervous that Kamala Harris doesn’t have what it takes to win over residents of the president’s beloved home state of Pennsylvania.
The Keystone state and its 19 electoral college votes could determine the outcome of the general election and has been the focal point of both campaigns in recent weeks.
“People like me have more of a connection with him than with her, even though he’s endorsed her,” said Jamie Hayes, 73, a retired college worker who watched the race from a neighbor’s porch a few doors down. from the house where Biden forged lifetime bonds.
‘So I’m behind her, and I’m certainly against the other side. But I think any help they can get in Pennsylvania would be a good thing, because we know it’s key. And Trump too,” he added, saying Biden could provide a needed “push.”
Jamie Hayes, 73, speaking a few doors from Joe Biden’s childhood home, said the electoral situation made him “scared.” The Harris supporter says she has more of a connection to Biden, and that the president should spend more time on his old stomping grounds boosting her.
Hayes was there as residents crowded around Biden during his final visit to his old Green Ridge neighborhood as part of the campaign restart.
Biden said at the time that he was looking at the economy “through the eyes of Scranton” rather than the eyes of Mar-a-Lago. Also came Election Day 2020.
Hayes worries that, after getting a boost in the debate, the hurricanes and war in Israel are putting Harris in a precarious position with voters. “It definitely scares me,” he says.
Having worked with young students, he says Democrats may need to turn to celebrity endorsements like Taylor Swift to motivate voters. “I know the impact it has, but that’s what they’re going to have to do,” he said.
At Hank’s Hoagies, a Biden favorite just steps from his old home, retired software engineer Deanne Loftus called Biden’s decision to step back “selfless” and says Harris has her vote.
He just has a feeling that Harris may prevail. ‘I think so. “I’m worried about the Senate race,” she says, pointing to the candidacy of Sen. Bob Casey, a Scranton native who grew up a few blocks away.
It’s not just sandwiches and old memories that keep Biden coming back. ‘Scranton rises to your heart. There’s no way to get it out, even if I wanted to. Not me,’ the president said days ago in his eulogy here for his childhood friend Tommy Bell at St. Paul’s Catholic Church, where he worshiped as a child.
It is a potential well of Democratic support surrounded by rural areas where Trump has been making inroads in a state that Biden took from him in 2020. Biden defeated Trump in Lackawanna County that year, prevailing by 9,000 votes and winning 54 to 45. Scranton has a population of approximately 75,000 inhabitants.
‘If we win Pennsylvania, we will win everything. It’s over, all of this,” Trump said during his trip to the state for a pair of rallies on Wednesday, including one in Scranton that drew a few thousand people.
Leading political experts agree. Pennsylvania, due to its treasure of 19 electoral votes, the closeness of the polls and the way it is reversed between Trump and Biden, is the most contested state in the country. For Harris, it is the most worrying section of the ‘blue wall’.
One of those Trump voters in Biden’s neighborhood is John, a Scranton firefighter and union member who did not want to give his middle name, and who remains with the former president after previously voting for Barack Obama. (The International Firefighters Union was the first to endorse Biden in 2020 and did not do so this year.)
‘When he was in the country for the first time, the economy was good. I know some of that is attributable to Barack Obama before him. But I do like his hardline stance on both domestic foreign policy and promoting economic growth here in the United States, he says while walking his dachshund around Biden’s former home.
President Joe Biden revisited his childhood home in Scranton in April as he sought re-election. Now voters in the neighborhood worry about whether Kamala Harris can win the state she won.
‘Scranton rises to your heart. There’s no way to get it out there,” Biden said in a recent eulogy in his childhood hometown.
Deanne Loftus says, after buying hoagies at Biden’s sandwich shop, that Kamala Harris can probably pull off a win. Fear for the state’s Democratic senator, Bob Casey.
Mia Scotti studies at Marywood Catholic University, just steps from Biden’s childhood home. He prepares to cast his first vote for Donald Trump
Freshman Baden Hancock trusts Trump on the economy as he sets his sights on a new Mazda sports car
Dave Castellani, a self-described right-wing Republican, voted in Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris. He called Trump a threat to the Constitution
Biden spent a decade in the North Washington Street home and still visits from time to time.
‘If we win Pennsylvania, we will win everything. It’s over, the whole thing,” Trump said in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
Just a few steps up the hill from Biden’s childhood home is Marywood University, a Catholic institution where some students earned extra credit by registering to vote.
Mia Scotti says she will vote for Trump for the first time. “I just feel like he has more of a voice and he’s done it before,” she said while taking a break from her studies in the school’s educational program.
Baden Hancock, a freshman math major, is also preparing to cast his first vote for Trump, after earning five extra points in his psychology class after registering. This golf fan hopes to raise enough money to buy a new Maza sports car.
“Maybe I agree with him,” he says of Trump. “I just want a better economy.” As for Harris, “I don’t think she’s as strong as Trump.” “I think she would just like to be a weaker candidate, I think Trump, I know he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.”
Biden hasn’t lived in the Green Ridge neighborhood since 1952. But there is another real Biden Street in Scranton, renamed after his election in the struggling downtown area. (There is also a Biden Highway with big green signs taking drivers off Pennsylvania Highway 307.)
As in many industrial centers, there are signs of economic trouble on Biden Street, which is dotted with empty businesses, including one on a prominent corner decorated with Trump signs.
But here, Harris has already secured exactly the kind of vote she needs if she wants to carry the state inside a Lackawanna County government center located just a few feet below Biden Street.
Dave Castellani, a self-described right-wing Republican and retired Proctor & Gamble employee, had just dropped his vote for Harris on Wednesday.
When asked how he feels after his vote, he responded: “That’s questionable.”
“You have to consider the worst of two evils,” he continued,
“You know, you may not think that Harris is the best president, that she’s going to be the best president, but then you look at Trump and you have to make a decision whether you stick with the Constitution or whether you stick with the Constitution.” “We’re going to look at someone who wants to try to be whatever he wants to be. He wants to be someone who’s like Putin,” he says after dropping off his ballot.
‘He has a huge following, so it’s like a cult situation. I mean, if you look at his vice president, everyone who worked with him said he shouldn’t be in office. It is a danger to the Constitution, to the American way of life. And I believe that,’ said Castellani, who voted for Trump in 2016.
“At the time I thought it was possible that he was a different type of person,” he said.