In Johnstown, Pennsylvania, there was a time Joe Biden wouldn’t have had to buy a drink.
Now he can barely buy a vote.
The town is cradled in Cambria County, a blue-collar community that leaned Democrat but has evolved Republican red through years of industrial decline.
Closures of the coal mines and steel mills, on which Johnstown grew, have reduced wealth and opportunity – much of a population looking for work has gone looking elsewhere.
Ditto the search for political solutions.
The swing state of Pennsylvania, as a whole, has swung behind Joe Biden in the last two major electoral tests – the 2020 presidential election and last year’s mid-terms.
But the numbers are tight and this corner of the keystone state pulls the Republican reins on his 2024 ambitions.
Johnstown doesn’t need a metaphor for a place that’s peaked, but it’s got one – the “Inclined Plane” that provides transport 1,700 feet up Yoder Hill, high above the town.
Rising at a 35.4-degree angle, it’s billed as the world’s steepest inclined plane and is a standout, much-vaunted tourist attraction.
And yet it lies unused and in need of repair – it has done for many months.
Johnstown needs a lift.
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A report in 2020 by the finance news website 24/7 Wall St ranked it as the poorest town in Pennsylvania.
So it’s poor, economically – rich in human resources, however.
We took a trip to the Johnstown Concert Ballet’s production of Sleeping Beauty at the town’s Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center.
It was a bravura, five-star performance from a community cast, led by principals “on loan” from the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, including Johnstown’s own Erin Casale.
Sleeping Beauty is, of course, a story whose central character is prone to bouts of drowsiness. Did it bring to mind Joe Biden? Was this audience thinking of the hashtag #sleepyjoe? Maybe not.
We did ask their thoughts on his ambitions for a second stint in the White House, however.
James Greenwell, 48
“Johnstown is funny because it depends on where you go on what political views you’ll see. You can cross the street and there will be Republicans, then on the other side of the street we are all Democrats. So it’s a weird area to live in.
“I’d prefer Biden not to run again, to be honest. It’s not that I don’t like him. I just think we need fresh blood on both sides of the aisle. I think we need to clean the house out altogether and start fresh. Some younger people with some new views.”
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Fisk Lee, 23
“Whenever it comes down to Biden, you always hear a lot about the question of his life expectancy.
“At the end of the day, I would support him. Though there might be small changes in his international and domestic policies currently, think in five to 10 years, we’ll see the lasting impacts of the laws he’s putting in.
“I would say overall Biden has been a success. But that’s a hard question for any US president.”
Pat Macey, 64
“I feel he’s destroying America. That’s my personal opinion.
“As a businessman, things are getting more difficult every day. I’m watching the public – people don’t have money. Three-quarters of our sales are on credit cards, it used to be cash.
“I think America is being hurt. We need to get back to making America great again.
“Things are being destroyed. The economy… they’re taxing all kinds of stupid stuff, funding things that shouldn’t be funded. I don’t even know how to describe it. You have transvestites in schools dancing, I mean, there’s a time you would go to jail for that. Now it’s ‘the right thing to do’. Something is wrong with America. I shouldn’t be saying it out loud, but it’s wrong.”
Nicole Zajdel, 40
“I’m excited for him to run again. I think that he’s a better candidate than Donald Trump. So I would really like to see him continue what he’s been building with our economy and just trying to recover from COVID and the recession as a whole.
“There have been increased amounts of businesses and jobs here. Everywhere you look, the infrastructure is being built back better. I think he is putting all of his words into action.”
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