Northampton county, Pennsylvania voted twice for Barack Obama before flipping for Trump – and could decide whether Trump gets a second term

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Larry Hallett erected Donald Trump billboards outside his roadside diner in eastern Pennsylvania, where he handed out Trump bumper stickers and presided over big breakfasts with a dozen or so regulars who got together to share their excitement about the Republican nominee.

When Trump won, Hallett – an 81-year-old who restored classic cars on the side and led a Bible study – called it one of the highlights of his life. “It’ll be fantastic,” he predicted.

Throughout Trump’s first year in office, Hallett remained an enthusiastic fan of the president. “I’m pretty happy with the man,” he would say. But, early in 2018, tragedy struck. Hallett went in for heart surgery and did not make it.

“Everybody was dumbfounded when they found out that he passed away,” said Joan Hallett, his wife of 62 years. “We had an awful time, when we had to write up the obituary – he did about anything that you could possibly do.”

The old politics breakfast group had dwindled, she said.

“You know we had this whole group of people, we talked about everything in there,” she said. “And they’re slowly dying off.”

In the two and a half years since Trump became president, his bedrock of support has not shifted. People who love Trump still love Trump. But life has changed in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, one of those crucial swing counties nationwide that voted twice for Barack Obama before flipping for Trump – and which could decide whether Trump gets a second term.

If Trump wins here in 2020, he has a great shot at retaking the state of Pennsylvania, and at recapturing the White House, political analysts say. But if Trump loses here, he might become the first one-term president since George HW Bush.

The fight to re-elect Trump has begun

With its unusual knack for electing politicians from both major parties, the region around Northampton county has a distinctive politics. It also has a distinctive history, as the former home of Bethlehem Steel, which for generations produced plates and beams for warships and skyscrapers – a symbol of American greatness if ever there was one.

Do voters here think Trump has delivered on his promise to “make America great again”? Despite Trump’s repeated proclamations that, thanks to him, the US steel industry is now “booming”, steel in Bethlehem has shown zero signs of resurgence, former workers say.

Frank Behum worked at Bethlehem Steel for 32 years. “The president is a pathological liar,” Behum said on a recent morning near the silent row of rusting blast furnaces that went extinct 25 years ago. “He can’t help himself. He’s been doing it his whole life and getting away with it.”

Some former steelworkers remain supportive of Trump, saying the president is doing his best to jump-start the manufacturing sector in the face of what they see as Democratic obstruction. But the question for Trump here is not whether he can hold his core supporters. It is whether he can expand his appeal enough to overcome lackluster approval ratings and a galvanized Democratic opposition, to find the extra votes he will need for re-election.

But here’s the thing: I’m banking on the Democrats continuing to be foolish and push nonsense. Lee Snover

“I have challenges. I have more to gain. I definitely have challenges,” said the Northampton county Republican party chairwoman Lee Snover, describing her effort to re-elect Trump. “I’ve got to hold what I have, and I actually have to get new people. And I have to get more Democrats.

“But here’s the thing: I’m banking on the Democrats continuing to be foolish and push nonsense.”

The fight to re-elect Trump has begun. With the first Democratic primary debates on the horizon at the end of June, here’s what it looks like in Northampton county, Pennsylvania.

How Trump could lose

Trump’s victory in Northampton county in 2016 was built on a combination of factors: the candidates in play, the policy terrain and the electorate. All three of those things have changed in Northampton county in the last two and a half years – each in ways that might look not so good for Trump.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shoppers at the 45th annual ‘Boutique at the Rink’, which last year raised over $250,000 to fight cancer, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on 29 May 2019. Photograph: Mark Makela/The Guardian

The electorate has changed

On election night 2016, the more white, rural areas of Northampton county witnessed the same turnout phenomenon that played out in the Florida panhandle, the Ohio rust belt and the Michigan exurbs. In Northampton, turnout jumped 11% from 2012.

“At 8 o’clock at night, they were five and six wide, all the way around the building, and all the way out to the parking lot,” said Larry Hallett at the time, describing voting lines. “Trump all the way. And that’s the way it went.”

But since then, the electorate in Northampton has changed. While some older voters have died, new residents – commuters, retirees, warehouse industry employees – have moved in, and a flood of new voters has entered the field, with turnout among young voters tripling from the midterm elections of 2014 to the midterm elections of 2018.

That turnout drove huge gains for Democrats in the Pennsylvania state legislature, while the Democratic governor won re-election with 57% of the vote. In a US senate race, the incumbent Democrat beat a virulently anti-immigrant Trump cutout by 13 points.

“What was very impressive in 2018, for a midterm election, were turnout levels among youth voters,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. “And if you add that group in the mix, if you look at where the president stands in that group – it’s daunting math for the president.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Left: Connie Butto checks out a snowglobe, among the thousands of donated items for sale at the 45th annual ‘Boutique at the Rink’. Right: Nick Feyfried, 75, and Gary Brown, 63, inspect a $20 telescope Photograph: Mark Makela/The Guardian

Healthcare has become a key issue

In 2016, when Trump ran on a call to “repeal and replace” Obama’s healthcare law, known as Obamacare, polling indicated that the policy stance did not move the needle much either way for him. But since then, when it comes to healthcare policy, Trump’s approval rating in Pennsylvania has dived, while it has solidified as the No 1 most important issue for voters.

According to this year’s edition of the annual Pennsylvania Health Poll conducted by the Muhlenberg College Public Health Program, a majority (51%) of Pennsylvania residents disapprove of the way that Trump is handling the issue of healthcare, with only 28% approving.

“If you look right now, it remains, I think, from a policy perspective, his greatest weakness going into 2020 in Pennsylvania,” said Borick. “He’s below 30% approval rating on this particular issue. There’s lots of strong disapproval, while the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare] is fairly popular in the state.

“I don’t know how he fixes that issue before the election.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump supporter Joe D’Ambrosio, 78, has cut hair for 55 years in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Mark Makela/The Guardian

The ‘hater vote’

Three years ago, Trump was a popular candidate in Northampton county. But he also drew a lot of votes from people here who avidly disliked his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. In dozens of interviews in the last three years with Northampton county voters, including Democrats who supported Trump, antipathy towards Clinton came up again and again as the main reason for their votes. A similar boost – call it the “hater vote” – is not likely to be available to Trump in 2020.

The most problematic candidate in the 2020 race for Trump, however, might be Trump. No incumbent president in the history for which we have reliable numbers has won re-election with less than around 49% approval. For pretty much his entire presidency, Trump’s average approval rating has been stuck where it is now, around 41%, give or take a few points.

Trump, however, still has time to lift his approval rating. And there is always the chance that this time, history might not apply.

How Trump could win

The key challenge for Trump in Pennsylvania is to create excitement that not only turns out his base, but spills over into voters who did not catch the fever in 2016, said Borick.

“The popular wisdom is that Trump squeezed about just as much as he could out of the state last time” in terms of voter turnout, said Borick. “But if he can keep those folks aboard, and maybe bring in a few more folks on the margin, who maybe didn’t vote at all in 2016, then he can make further gains.”

Snover, the county Republican party chairwoman, has a plan to help Trump win again. “We’re running the Stop the Nonsense campaign,” she said. “Because we feel every issue the Democrats are running on and putting in the forefront is nonsense.”

Snover named the Green New Deal, the campaign for abortion rights, Medicare for All, free college tuition and the impeachment of Trump.

“I’m hoping that the Democrats overplay all these things,” said Snover. “They’re not real issues that hard-working Americans base their vote on.”

People don’t like socialism. People that are working people, you know? Joe D’Ambrosio

Talk to Trump supporters, and it’s easy to see how Snover’s message could resonate.

“If anything, the Democrats continuing to do what they’re doing is making the resolve of those of us that support him that much stronger,” said Bruce Haines, a hotelier and former steel executive. “The fact that they continue to harass him like this just strengthens the resolve of the people I talk to – not just the Trump supporters, but the Trump-agenda supporters.

“So I think support is going to strengthen as we get closer to the election. And as we sort out who he’s going to run against – will it be a socialist, or will it be [Joe] Biden?”

In conversations about opponents who could challenge Trump in Pennsylvania, the most frequently recurring name is that of Joe Biden, the former vice-president who was born and raised in the state and who currently dusts the Democratic competition in polls of Pennsylvania voters. The idea is that Biden could lure back the large proportion of registered Democrats in Northampton and elsewhere who switched sides to vote for Trump in 2016.

But counterbalancing that theory, for Democrats, is the concern that a candidate like Biden, a white man and a senior citizen, would sap the enthusiasm of grassroots progressives looking for a fresh face.

It’s not yet clear which other Democratic candidate might emerge to challenge Trump here. Many supporters of the president are quick to take Trump up on his branding of the entire field as “socialist”.

“People don’t like socialism. People that are working people, you know?” said Joe D’Ambrosio, 78, who has cut hair in downtown Bethlehem for five decades and who switched parties from Democrat to Republican in 2016 to vote for Trump. “The socialists don’t know how to pay the bills.”

Snover, who calls hardcore supporters of the president “Trumpers”, expressed confidence that despite the Republicans’ lackluster performance in the midterms, Trump voters would materialize in 2020.

“I just think these Trumpers are a different animal, they’re like a sleeping giant,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The blast furnaces used to glow at night in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Mark Makela/The Guardian

The Promise

“In one year Tariffs have rebuilt our Steel Industry - it is booming!” Trump tweeted last month.

If that were true, few Americans would be more capable of declaring it so than Ron Keschl, 76, who had five main jobs at Bethlehem Steel over four decades: sintering plant foreman, ore yard foreman, car tip foreman, blast furnace drillman and coke works foreman.

“I don’t feel it around here,” Keschl said of Trump’s claim that US steel is back. “I don’t feel anything around here. You can’t get it back. That whole thing is gone.”

Two weeks ago, engineers dynamited one of the most powerful symbols of the former local industry, the 21-storey Martin Tower in downtown Bethlehem. The former headquarters for Bethlehem Steel is now a giant pile of rubble – with twisted orange steel beams set to one side for recycling.

Summer is coming once again to Northampton county, when Saturday nights at the Trolley Shop, the Halletts’ restaurant, are marked by gatherings of classic car enthusiasts featuring live music and outdoor dancing. Larry Hallett, the community pillar, used to emcee the event.

“Everybody misses him,” said Joan Hallett. “It’s hard. I just can’t get over it, because we were together constantly.”

But as politics go, she said, not much has changed.

“We’re all for Trump yet.”