The number of people coming to the store has increased by more than a third in the last seven months. The center’s executive director, Raymond Santiago, sees it as a clear indication of something he has noticed over the past two years: Many members of the area’s Latino community are struggling to meet their basic needs.
Northampton County, which includes the city of Bethlehem, is a traditional landmark of Pennsylvania, one of the most contested states in the presidential elections and one of the most important, and Hispanics are a key part of the coalition that President Joe Biden is trying to rebuild as he embarks on his campaign for a second term. In doing so, the Democrat could struggle to gain buy-in for a crucial part of his re-election strategy.
One of Biden’s campaign messages he has conveyed in previous visits to Pennsylvania is that former President Donald Trump, the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination, is a danger to American democracy. Biden hopes that message will stimulate the same voters who went to the polls four years agowhen Northampton County went his way by a narrow margin after supporting Trump in 2016, also by a narrow margin.
From what he has seen in his interaction with visitors to the Hispanic center, Santiago is not so sure of the success of the presidential message. What dominates the conversations there is the price of food and the lack of affordable housing.
“I think many people are already immune to that message; will not be accepted as easily in this election as it was in 2020,” he said. “If you continue to promote that message, you could alienate voters.”
Biden chose a location near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with its deep symbolism of the country’s fight for freedom, for his 2024 campaign kickoff. At it he spoke of Trump as a grave threat to the United States and said the election generalities revolve “entirely” around whether democracy can survive. It was a message similar to the one he delivered before the 2022 midterm elections at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the nation’s founding documents were created. Biden warned that Trump and his followers threaten “the very foundations of our republic.”
Biden has continued the theme throughout the start of the primary season, telling his supporters that his winning a second term is essential to maintaining the country’s democratic traditions.
What voters say
Over several days, The Associated Press interviewed a cross-section of voters in Northampton County to ask whether Biden’s message about the fate of democracy was working. These voters represented part of the very coalition Biden will need to win again in Pennsylvania: Black, Latino, independent and moderate voters from both parties.
Their general response was that the president’s warning that a second Trump presidency will destroy constitutional norms and destroy democratic institutions is not one that, by itself, will motivate them and make them go vote.
Like people in much of the rest of the country, most of those interviewed would prefer to avoid a rematch of the 2020 race, and several hinted that they would be willing to consider a serious third-party candidate who has a strong message and an opportunity to win, but that possibility does not exist for now.
border security
Evelyn Fermin, 74, a regular visitor to the Lehigh Hispanic Center, has lived in the county for two years after spending most of her life in New Jersey. For the daughter of parents who emigrated from the Dominican Republic, Their concerns are border security and spending abroad.
“Instead of sending it to foreign countries, I think we should use it for our people,” he said.
As a divorced mother who supported her son through his studies until he became a lawyer, she also does not support Biden’s attempt to forgive student loan debt: “If I could do it, I feel like they should too,” she said.
Curt Balch, 44, worked in the healthcare sector and is now a family man at home. He had to deal with a two-hour school delay along with his 5-year-old daughter at his home in Hellertown, in a more rural part of the county. He registered as a Republican so he could vote in the primary, but says he is more libertarian.
Balch said the messages from both sides are “quite toxic” when they warn that the other is “a threat or a danger to the basic principles of the country moving forward.”
He supported Trump in the last two elections, but is open to considering other candidates this year, especially if he believes there is a striking third party or independent candidate. Balch believes dire warnings about a possible second Trump term are overblown, and he notes that even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump let states decide for themselves how to handle it.
“I understand the rhetoric: ‘Oh, he’s going to be a fascist dictator,’” Balch said. “I don’t think it’s a message that’s driving people to the polls. “I don’t think people are justifiably thinking that they have to be afraid of Donald Trump.”
Manipulation of Biden and the media?
Christian Miller was a lifelong Democrat but became an independent in 2022 out of frustration with political gridlock and a sense that he was becoming more conservative with age.
He said he might one day consider switching to the Republican Party, but not while Trump leads it. And not because he worries that Trump will become a dictator if he wins a second term.
“I don’t know if I fear it as much as the media on both sides makes it out to be,” said Miller, a 53-year-old banking executive who lives in the town of Nazareth. “I believe the institutions are safe and strong enough to withstand the challenges.”
Miller cited the dozens of court challenges by Trump and his allies seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential results as an example of institutions standing firm.
A spokesperson for Biden’s campaign team said the message about democracy is central to the campaign, but it is not the only one the campaign team will use to reach voters. The protection of the right to abortion and the fight for higher wages will be some of the essential themes of the president’s speech.
Biden narrowly won Northampton County in 2020, four years after Trump narrowly won against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Anna Kodama, 69, is the type of voter who has traditionally swung between parties.
He grew up in a Republican household in Ohio, but switched parties during college. She remembers frequently voting for one party or another since she moved to the Lehigh Valley in 1977, until 2016, when Trump first ran for president and she voted for Democrats.
Biden fails to connect with voters
The people Kodama meets don’t listen to Biden’s messages about a dark future with Trump. Instead, he would like you to talk more about what he is doing to improve the economy and forge stronger ties with Europe. In particular, he paid attention to a visit Biden made this year to a nearby town, Emmaus, where he stopped at local businesses to talk about the importance of supporting small businesses.
He said Biden seems to connect with people better when he promotes a positive message, rather than a negative one that he believes won’t motivate people in the fall.
“That’s where I find it attractive: Look at what we can do together,” the artist and former teacher said over coffee at Café the Lodge in Bethlehem. “That message resonates with me and the people I know.”
For Esther Lee, 90, president of the local office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the message of threat to democracy is not generating much concern among people. with whom you contact. She already plans to vote, but not because she’s afraid of another Trump presidency.
In his opinion, Biden will have to make a greater effort to get the participation of black voters, because so far his campaign messages have not had an echo. She is not convinced that Northampton County’s black community is specifically targeted by the president: “I see no evidence of that,” she said.
Lee said the issue he hears about most in his circle is homelessness: “It’s No. 1,” he said, adding that resources don’t seem to be enough to address the problem at the local level. The issue that accompanies that is affordable housing, she said.
“In the Biden campaign they have to go deeper” with the messages, he noted.
But Guillermo Lopez Jr., 69, believes that messages of fear and that Trump endangers American democracy are essentially meaningless for many of the county’s working-class voters. Their concern, he believes, is to find a stable job with a good salary.
“I actually think that hurts the vote,” he said of the warnings about democracy. The average person who “just works hard and shows up to work, I don’t think that motivates them. I think it scares them and paralyzes them.”
Source: With information from AP
