Blue Philly working-class voters start leaning toward Trump ahead of election: 'People actually love him'
Working-class Philadelphia Democrats may be planning to vote for former President Trump in November.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Wednesday about growing trends among poorer wards and districts in the Pennsylvania city to shift towards the Republican Party despite years of being solidly blue.
One example the report cited included 27-year-old Gabriel Lopez who registered as a Democrat and voted for Hillary Clinton for his first election in 2016. Since then, he changed his registration to Republican and voiced his support for Trump.
"Democrats keep saying [Trump] is going to bring down the economy, but he was already president for four years, and taxes were lower," Lopez said. "We’re tired of the same politics. We got a different type of guy, and the people actually love him."
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The article added, "Lopez embodies one of Democrats’ biggest problems in Pennsylvania: working-class voters in Philadelphia, a once reliable voting bloc for the party, have drifted right in recent years. And they’ve been disproportionately affected by rising prices over the last several years, an issue many blame Democrats for."
Although Philadelphia, which holds 20% of the state’s Democratic voters, may be crucial for Vice President Kamala Harris to win the state, the Inquirer reported the city lost the most Democratic voters out of any city in the 2020 election.
The trend was most pronounced in poorer, less-educated areas with majority-Latino neighborhoods showing the most movement, likely concerned about the economy.
Retired truck driver and registered Democrat Jim Kohn listed that as his top issue.
"When Trump was president, everything was cheaper," Kohn said. "Now, everything is so sky-high."
Other Democrats in the area remained optimistic about Harris’ chances, though some understood the growing support for Trump.
"Many of us have people in our families who have gone to jail, or gone to schools that have failed us. We’re not trustful of the government," Álvarez Febo, a Democrat who plans to vote for Harris, said. "Then you have someone like Trump, who is a liar, and for some people, it’s like, ‘you know something? He’s an honest representation of what we feel.’"
"They’re saying Kamala is going to save our democracy," Febo added. "That means very little for people who can’t keep the lights on."
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Some Republicans, by contrast, were very optimistic about a potential political shift in the city.
"When I first started in politics in 1978, the managerial class was Republican — no one votes the way their bosses vote," 45th Ward GOP Leader Charlie O’Connor said. "Now, most people in the managerial class vote Democratic and no one is voting the way their boss is. So it’s been a flip. Most of the bosses are Democrats and the Democratic Party has become the party of the upper middle class."
Pennsylvania is considered one of the most competitive states for this presidential election. A Fox News survey found Harris and Trump tied at 49% among likely voters in the state. Trump won Pennsylvania in the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, but lost the state in 2020 to President Biden.