As Donald Trump emerged to a thunderous roar of approval in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Rust belt, he was back in his comfort zone among the people who once put him in power. But by the time he stepped off the stage nearly two hours later, even some of the former US president’s supporters were wondering whether his rallies are doing his re-election campaign more harm than good. Trump was on his seventh visit to Luzerne county since he first ran for president in 2016.
From the stage of an indoor arena in Wilkes-Barre earlier this month, the former president looked out on thousands of the kind of blue-collar voters who helped put him into the White House by flipping the north-eastern Pennsylvania county after it twice voted for Barack Obama. Trump was back to fire them up once more as he again counts on Luzerne to help push him over the line in a swing state he almost certainly has to win if he is to be a two-term president. But much has changed in Luzerne since he first ran eight years ago.
The local Republican party has been torn apart by infighting amid accusations of racism and “sledgehammer politics” over how to get Trump re-elected. Meanwhile, support for Democratic candidates in local and state elections has been steadily rising even as its own supporters describe the local party as a “a complete mess” and “useless”. As the election gets off the ground, political strategists on both sides say that the outcome in Luzerne county and much of the rest of nort.