Trump Wave Builds in a Steel Town Forsaken by the World Economy -- Bloomberg

[bsteadman]

Trump Wave Builds in a Steel Town Forsaken by the World Economy

The billionaire’s pledges resonate in rust-belt Pennsylvania.

Bloomberg
Andrew Mayeda
4/21/2016

Excerpt:Apr 21, 2016 8:15 AM EDT

The town of Johnstown was devastated by floods not once, not twice, but three times in less than a century. Then came the economic wave that washed away the steel industry, and with it a way of life.

Now a backlash is building in the maple-studded hills of southwestern Pennsylvania. Captured in interviews and confirmed in statewide polls, the sentiment is propelling Donald Trump toward the Republican nomination, and possibly even the presidency of the world’s biggest economy.

It’s the feeling people get when they’re afraid of being left behind.

“This town is beyond distressed. We’ve been destroyed. It’s sad, because this was a good place to grow up. You didn’t have to lock your door,” said Robert Vargo, 63, as he talked politics with a friend in a McDonald’s. The retired Johnstown native, who worked as a security guard despite having an engineering degree, plans to vote for Trump. “People are sick of being ignored. That’s why Trump is popular. He’s actually saying the things people are afraid to express.”

Pennsylvania’s 71 delegates will be the biggest prize on April 26, when five states vote for the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. Each one could be crucial for frontrunner Trump, fresh from a landslide win in his home state of New York, as he battles to secure a majority that would deny opponents a chance to unseat him at the party convention in July. The latest YouGov/CBS survey shows him 20 points clear of his two rivals in the state.

While there are no town-level polls, Trump’s promise to “make America great again” resonates in Johnstown, with its strong sense of vanished glory days. It was an industrial powerhouse, churning out the metal that helped build railroads, bridges and skyscrapers across a rapidly growing America. About 18,000 people worked in its steel mills after the Second World War -- today the entire population is just over 20,000 -- and they filled the skies above the Conemaugh River with columns of smoke. Residents hopped on and off streetcars, shopped at department stores, and went to movies at three Main Street theaters.

The streetcars are long gone, and downtown is pocked with vacant storefronts, as is the main shopping mall just outside town. Many houses are abandoned or dilapidated, with bedsheets and mattresses covering their windows. Some, with their caved roofs and buckled frames, look like they’ve been hit by a natural disaster.

“After businesses close, it’s like a ghost town. I don’t go downtown after dark,” said Michele Stuer, 47, a school-bus driver who plans to vote for Trump. “I remember when Obama was promising change. It changed alright, but not for the better.”
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[bsteadman]

Why Trump Could Triumph in Pennsylvania and Lose Most of Its Delegates

In the Keystone State, delegates are on the ballot, too.

Bloomberg
By Steven Yaccino
4/20/2016

Excerpt:

Aldridk Gessa has been campaigning for months. She walked door to door in the dead of winter collecting signatures to get her name on the ballot. She’s handed out leaflets, spoken at local events, and appeared on regional TV and radio programs to make her pitch. Her goal: winning a place as a Republican delegate from Pennsylvania’s 2nd Congressional District so she can attend the Republican National Convention in July.

Gessa is one of 163 people running for 54 delegate spots alongside presidential candidates on the April 26 Pennsylvania primary ballot. Most of the 2,472 Republican national delegates will be bound to support candidates on the first convention ballot according to the popular vote in their state. In contrast, Pennsylvania’s elected delegates will be free to vote for whomever they wish, making them especially important in this year’s tight race. They will make up about a third of the approximately 175 free agents who will travel to the convention in Cleveland, more than from any other state. “We actually might be those people who decide the next Republican nominee,” says Gessa, 44, a Ted Cruz supporter.

With three candidates still in the race, it’s possible front runner Donald Trump may fall short of the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination outright. The last time none of the Republican candidates amassed enough committed delegates before the national convention was in 1976, when Ronald Reagan mounted a challenge to unseat incumbent President Gerald Ford. Just three weeks before that year’s gathering in Kansas City, Mo., Reagan shocked his fellow conservatives by recruiting moderate Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker as his running mate. It was an unexpected gambit with a clear motive: wooing unbound delegates from Schweiker’s home state. Reagan ultimately failed, losing to Ford on the first ballot.

This year, Trump, Cruz, and John Kasich are going straight to the would-be delegates. In early April, when Cruz was in Harrisburg speaking at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, his staff organized a meet and greet for all delegate candidates supporting him in the state. It was a chance for Cruz to answer their questions and pose for pictures. Afterward, the campaign gave out a list of addresses and phone numbers for likely pro-Cruz voters in each Pennsylvania district.

The Kasich campaign, which is positioning itself to benefit if the national convention goes to multiple ballots, has been calling prospective delegates citing polls showing the Ohio governor is stronger than his rivals in November. “These are folks that are not bringing ideological baggage into the convention,” says Bob Walker, Kasich’s Pennsylvania state chairman, who’s been reaching out to delegate candidates to remind them that the Ohio governor grew up in McKees Rocks, outside Pittsburgh. “They’re coming in thinking about who they can elect in the fall.”

Publicly, most would-be delegates are staying neutral. That includes people such as Phil English, a former congressman from Erie who attended the 1976 convention as a College Republican. His preferred candidate, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, dropped out early in the race, and English hasn’t committed to anyone else. “I very strongly want to nominate a ticket that can beat a Clinton ticket,” he says. He’s been contacted by all three GOP campaigns, which offered face time with the candidates if he succeeds in winning a delegate berth. Trump’s team has been making the case that the mogul deserves the nomination if he arrives at the convention with a lead over Cruz and Kasich, English says, but he wants to see which candidate voters in his home district favor before he chooses a side: “I do think the results of the primary will weigh heavily on delegates.”
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