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A Pennsylvania Town in Decline and Despair Looks to Donald Trump - The New York Times
MBRIDGE, Pa. — As the inevitability of Donald J. Trump’s victory played out Tuesday night on a television above Fred’s Divot bar, the men who by day carry pipes, hang drywall and drive locomotives watched the returns with mounting satisfaction.
“He’s killing it — that’s our next president,” said John Gaguzis, 50, who had affixed an “I voted” sticker to the blue uniform shirt he wears in a bottling plant. “We need a change. We’ve got to get rid of the Democrats that support people that don’t want to work.”
Jerry Kormick, a disabled construction worker engaged in a serious darts competition, said he had voted for the first time in his life, at age 37. He never believed polls showing Hillary Clinton ahead, he said, not after visiting friends in rural North Carolina.
Photo
This former steel town west of Pittsburgh was for decades a Democratic stronghold, where Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms are proclaimed on a memorial in the small town park. But industrial decline and what is perceived as too fast cultural change in the country at large has tras*formed Ambridge and the rest of Beaver County around it, with the yards of faded brick homes presenting a river of Trump signs.
Mr. Trump captured Pennsylvania on the way to the White House, beating Hillary Clinton by one percentage point in the state. But that narrow victory was built with huge margins in places like Beaver County, where Mr. Trump prevailed by 20 points.
Joann and Mark Crano, both retired, switched their registrations to Republican this year after a lifetime as Democrats, and they reeled off the names of many other friends and family members who did likewise.
“In 2008, we were wholehearted Hillary supporters,” said Ms. Crano, who was an elected local official for a decade. “We went to every rally.”
Photo
It was Benghazi that put her over the edge, she said.
For Mr. Crano, a former steelworker who retired after a second career at the Pittsburgh airport, it was abortion and same-sex marriage. “If you’re a Christian, you can only vote for Trump,” he said the day before the election at K & N restaurant. It is one of the few thriving businesses still left on Merchant Street, which old-timers — and there are now mostly old-timers — remember as once so crowded you bumped into people. Now it is largely deserted.
The Cranos were having breakfast beneath a poster of Elvis with several friends, all fierce Trump backers. They painted a desperate vision of America if Mrs. Clinton won, predicting a wave of terrorism by unvetted refugees and a slide into dictatorship.
“I’m going to the bank and taking a bunch of money out and buying a lot of guns and ammo,” said Mr. Crano, a former union leader with a large white beard. “I’m going to protect mine and my family,” he added.
Ambridge, like much of Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, eagerly enlisted in Trump Nation this year. Its largely white, less educated population (15 percent have a college degree) packed a boisterous rally that Mr. Trump held at the local high school.
“I work for my money, and obviously I work for other people, too,” said Sam Bruno, a street sweeper driver, whose yard was festooned with Trump signs.
On Monday he predicted a Trump landslide. “I just hope Mr. Trump can change our government and stop any terrorism coming into our country,” he said.
A number of Mr. Trump’s supporters in town echoed his talking points, blaming the Affordable Care Act for rising premiums of their employer-provided health care and asserting that Mrs. Clinton wanted “open borders” that would turn the United States into a country as dangerous as Pakistan.
The town is named for the American Bridge Company, whose plant on the Ohio River shaped the steel for the Empire State Building, the George Washington Bridge and the gates of the Panama Canal. The town inspired a Tom Cruise movie, “All the Right Moves,” about a high school football player straining to escape a life in the mills.
Photo
Unemployment in the county hit Depression-era levels, and tens of thousands lost their jobs in the 1980s. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
But when American Bridge and a wave of other steel plants in Beaver County shut down in the 1980s, undersold by modern competitors, tens of thousands lost their jobs. Unemployment in the county hit Depression-era levels. Ambridge’s population of 6,850 is down 40 percent from 1970. The population is also grayer and poorer.
“We do about 100 funerals a year, but only 20 baptisms a year,” said the Reverend Joseph A. Carr of Good Samaritan Roman Catholic Church.
Clinton supporters were not invisible but kept their heads down. A radio ad by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party that ran on Sunday during the Pittsburgh Steelers game urged voters to protect gains made for working people, mentioning Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, but no one on this year’s ballot.
Jack Lefebvre, who seemed to be the only Clinton supporter at Fred’s Divot, kept quiet most of the night as he sat beneath the TV and kept busy on his phone. He showed a Facebook post by his wife, who had canvassed on Tuesday for Mrs. Clinton.
“All went well until we were walking back to the car and a man who I would guess was in his late 50s came out of a store and shouted ‘Hillary for prison,’” Barbara Burgess-Lefebvre had written. He yelled something further using “the P word,” she wrote.
“I whirled around and looked him in the eye and said, ‘You would use language like that in front of a woman?’”
Voting on Tuesday at the Fire Department was heavier than poll workers could ever remember.
Ruth Grassel, who tutors English at a community college, said she had been praying about the election and antiestéticared that even though she voted for Mr. Trump, he would not be able to bring the country together.
“This has been a very divisive election,” she said. “Whoever wins will have a very difficult time trying to unite the country. That makes me sad.”
MBRIDGE, Pa. — As the inevitability of Donald J. Trump’s victory played out Tuesday night on a television above Fred’s Divot bar, the men who by day carry pipes, hang drywall and drive locomotives watched the returns with mounting satisfaction.
“He’s killing it — that’s our next president,” said John Gaguzis, 50, who had affixed an “I voted” sticker to the blue uniform shirt he wears in a bottling plant. “We need a change. We’ve got to get rid of the Democrats that support people that don’t want to work.”
Jerry Kormick, a disabled construction worker engaged in a serious darts competition, said he had voted for the first time in his life, at age 37. He never believed polls showing Hillary Clinton ahead, he said, not after visiting friends in rural North Carolina.
Photo
This former steel town west of Pittsburgh was for decades a Democratic stronghold, where Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms are proclaimed on a memorial in the small town park. But industrial decline and what is perceived as too fast cultural change in the country at large has tras*formed Ambridge and the rest of Beaver County around it, with the yards of faded brick homes presenting a river of Trump signs.
Mr. Trump captured Pennsylvania on the way to the White House, beating Hillary Clinton by one percentage point in the state. But that narrow victory was built with huge margins in places like Beaver County, where Mr. Trump prevailed by 20 points.
Joann and Mark Crano, both retired, switched their registrations to Republican this year after a lifetime as Democrats, and they reeled off the names of many other friends and family members who did likewise.
“In 2008, we were wholehearted Hillary supporters,” said Ms. Crano, who was an elected local official for a decade. “We went to every rally.”
Photo
It was Benghazi that put her over the edge, she said.
For Mr. Crano, a former steelworker who retired after a second career at the Pittsburgh airport, it was abortion and same-sex marriage. “If you’re a Christian, you can only vote for Trump,” he said the day before the election at K & N restaurant. It is one of the few thriving businesses still left on Merchant Street, which old-timers — and there are now mostly old-timers — remember as once so crowded you bumped into people. Now it is largely deserted.
The Cranos were having breakfast beneath a poster of Elvis with several friends, all fierce Trump backers. They painted a desperate vision of America if Mrs. Clinton won, predicting a wave of terrorism by unvetted refugees and a slide into dictatorship.
“I’m going to the bank and taking a bunch of money out and buying a lot of guns and ammo,” said Mr. Crano, a former union leader with a large white beard. “I’m going to protect mine and my family,” he added.
Ambridge, like much of Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, eagerly enlisted in Trump Nation this year. Its largely white, less educated population (15 percent have a college degree) packed a boisterous rally that Mr. Trump held at the local high school.
“I work for my money, and obviously I work for other people, too,” said Sam Bruno, a street sweeper driver, whose yard was festooned with Trump signs.
On Monday he predicted a Trump landslide. “I just hope Mr. Trump can change our government and stop any terrorism coming into our country,” he said.
A number of Mr. Trump’s supporters in town echoed his talking points, blaming the Affordable Care Act for rising premiums of their employer-provided health care and asserting that Mrs. Clinton wanted “open borders” that would turn the United States into a country as dangerous as Pakistan.
The town is named for the American Bridge Company, whose plant on the Ohio River shaped the steel for the Empire State Building, the George Washington Bridge and the gates of the Panama Canal. The town inspired a Tom Cruise movie, “All the Right Moves,” about a high school football player straining to escape a life in the mills.
Photo
Unemployment in the county hit Depression-era levels, and tens of thousands lost their jobs in the 1980s. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
But when American Bridge and a wave of other steel plants in Beaver County shut down in the 1980s, undersold by modern competitors, tens of thousands lost their jobs. Unemployment in the county hit Depression-era levels. Ambridge’s population of 6,850 is down 40 percent from 1970. The population is also grayer and poorer.
“We do about 100 funerals a year, but only 20 baptisms a year,” said the Reverend Joseph A. Carr of Good Samaritan Roman Catholic Church.
Clinton supporters were not invisible but kept their heads down. A radio ad by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party that ran on Sunday during the Pittsburgh Steelers game urged voters to protect gains made for working people, mentioning Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, but no one on this year’s ballot.
Jack Lefebvre, who seemed to be the only Clinton supporter at Fred’s Divot, kept quiet most of the night as he sat beneath the TV and kept busy on his phone. He showed a Facebook post by his wife, who had canvassed on Tuesday for Mrs. Clinton.
“All went well until we were walking back to the car and a man who I would guess was in his late 50s came out of a store and shouted ‘Hillary for prison,’” Barbara Burgess-Lefebvre had written. He yelled something further using “the P word,” she wrote.
“I whirled around and looked him in the eye and said, ‘You would use language like that in front of a woman?’”
Voting on Tuesday at the Fire Department was heavier than poll workers could ever remember.
Ruth Grassel, who tutors English at a community college, said she had been praying about the election and antiestéticared that even though she voted for Mr. Trump, he would not be able to bring the country together.
“This has been a very divisive election,” she said. “Whoever wins will have a very difficult time trying to unite the country. That makes me sad.”
