bethlehem, pennsylvania — The voters of Northampton County, in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, have chosen the victor of all but three U.S. presidential elections since 1920.
The only misses: picking Democrat Hubert Humphrey over Republican Richard Nixon in 1968; preferring Democrat Al Gore, who won the popular vote nationwide in 2000 but narrowly lost the electoral vote — which determines the winner — to Republican George W. Bush; and four years later, selecting Democrat John Kerry over incumbent Bush.
That is one of the reasons that the county is a focus of this year’s presidential campaigns by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican vying to become only the second candidate to successfully return to the presidency for a nonconsecutive second term.
Northampton County has seen it all, predating the American Revolution. It was established in 1752 when Pennsylvania was a colonial-era province.
The county seat of Easton was one of the three places where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the public. The city was a major commercial and transportation hub in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Steel legacy
Sixteen kilometers (10 miles) to the southwest, Bethlehem was synonymous with industrial might from the days of the blacksmith to the era of mass production, which ended here when Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt, the company dissolved, and its assets were sold in the early 21st century.
That legacy remains fresh and bitter for tens of thousands of voters in the Lehigh Valley with direct links to Bethlehem Steel.
“China’s in the steel business now, and they want to know: What are these candidates going to do to bring those jobs back or to rebuild America?” said Samuel Chen, a Republican strategist with the Liddell Group.
What is on the minds of the county’s voters has ramifications beyond the Lehigh Valley.
Northampton County “has incredible predictive power,” according to Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. “What really makes it magical in its ability to predict what happens in the state and nationally is its mix.”
That mix includes farmers fretting about agricultural policies and suburbanites focused on social issues, education and taxes. And the demographics of the county are in flux — with additional new residents from New York and Philadelphia seeking more-affordable housing and better neighborhoods. There is also a growing Hispanic population in Bethlehem and neighboring Allentown.
“We also have large groups of white working-class individuals that have been pivotal in politics during the ascension of Trump’s populism,” Borick told VOA. “That mix has made it particularly competitive, and one of the reasons why it’s one of the few counties in Pennsylvania that went from Barack Obama to Donald Trump to Joe Biden.”
More tolerance
The county’s diversity is one of its strengths and a reason there is more tolerance and moderation here than other places in a nation now deeply divided politically, according to Chen, who is also an assistant professor of political science at Northampton Community College.
“In Northampton County, it is very difficult to travel this county, live in this county, and not meet people that are different than you — the way you look, the way you think, the way you believe. I think that softens them to some of that more hard-core ‘us versus them’ rhetoric that we see in today’s politics,” Chen explained in a VOA interview at the WBPH-TV studio, where he hosts a weekly public affairs talk show.
While Democrats have a slight edge among registered voters in the county, the numbers are practically even between what Chen described as hard-core Republicans and hard-core Democrats.
“That small percentage of people who are willing to swing are going to decide that election time and time and time again,” said Chen.
And that is why Northampton County is known as Swing County USA, where there is still a significant percentage of voters who split their ballots between parties and prioritize issues over personalities.
“Being the president is a job. And so, we care more about, ‘Is the job going to get done?’ ” said Rachel Lowell, a new mother concerned about women’s rights and environmental policies, who spoke to VOA on Bethlehem’s Main Street.
Another passerby on Main Street predicted the majority of his fellow county voters would support the Democrats for a second consecutive presidential election, as they are increasingly turned off by what they regard as Trump’s bombast and antics.
“From talking to people who I know voted for Trump in the last election, they’re not going to vote for him this time around because they’re saying that they’re kind of tired of it,” said Mick O’Hearn.
In Easton, Harris is not going to get Wayne Jones’ vote because, he said, Trump is tougher on stopping illegal immigration.
“If I had to choose right now — Trump, hands down. I mean, [the Democrats] letting all these people cross the border?” said an exasperated Jones, a house painter, as he stood on the spot where the Declaration of Independence was read aloud on July 8, 1776.
‘Overwhelming’ attention
The county’s voters take seriously their pivotal role in picking presidents, but that blessing can be a curse, according to Borick, who is also director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College.
“I live in Northampton County. The mailings I get, or when I turn on the TV, the amount of ads is omnipresent. It’s beautiful to be wanted, but sometimes the attention can be overwhelming,” he said.
Pennsylvania is worth 19 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to capture the presidency, making it practically a must-win state for both campaigns.
Two polls released Thursday showed Harris now leading Trump in the state, erasing Biden’s deficit in surveys there before he was pressured out of the race by leading Democrats.
Rendy Wicaksana of VOA’s Indonesian Service contributed to this report.
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