BETHLEHEM, Pa.— Just blocks from the shuttered Bethlehem Steel plant, the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley was bustling on a recent day with scores of older people eating lunch. Downstairs, out of sight, a constant stream of visitors was shopping in its massive food pantry.
Over the past seven months, the number visitors to the pantry has risen by more than a third. The center’s executive director, Raymond Santiago, sees that as a stark sign of something he has felt over the past couple years: Many in the area’s Latino community are struggling to meet their basic needs.
Northampton County, which includes Bethlehem, is a traditional bellwether for Pennsylvania, one of the most important presidential swing states, and Latinos are a key part of the coalition that President Joe Biden is trying rebuild as he embarks on his campaign for a second term. In doing so, the Democrat might have challenges selling a crucial part of his reelection strategy.
One of the messages he has delivered in previous visits to Pennsylvania is that former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, is a danger to American democracy. Biden is hoping that message energizes the same voters who turned out four years ago, when Northampton County narrowly flipped to him after supporting Trump by a thin margin in 2016.
Based on his interactions with visitors to the Hispanic center, Santiago isn’t so sure. It’s the price of groceries and lack of affordable housing that dominate conversations there.
“I think so many people are already immune to that messaging, it won’t land as cleanly this election as it did in 2020,” he said. “If he keeps pushing that message, it might turn voters away.”
Biden chose a location near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with its deep symbolism for the country’s struggle for freedom, for his initial campaign event for 2024, portraying Trump as a grave threat to America and describing the general election as “all about” whether democracy can survive. It was a message similar to one he gave 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 threatened “the very foundation of our republic.”
Biden has continued the theme during the early primary season, telling supporters winning a second term is essential for maintaining the country’s democratic traditions.
Over the course of several days, The Associated Press interviewed a cross section of voters in Northampton County to ask whether Biden’s messaging around the fate of democracy was resonating. These voters represented parts of the very coalition Biden will need to win Pennsylvania again — Black voters, Latinos, independents and moderates from both parties.
Their overarching response: The president’s warning that a second Trump presidency will shred constitutional norms and destroy democratic institutions is not one that, alone, will motivate them and get them out to vote.
Like people across much of the rest of the country, most of those interviewed would prefer avoiding a rematch of the 2020 contest, and several suggested they would seriously consider a serious third-party candidate with a strong message and a chance of winning.
For the daughter of parents who immigrated from the Dominican Republic, her concerns are border security and spending abroad.
“Rather than sending it out to foreign countries, I think we should use it for our people,” she said.
As a divorced mother who supported her son as he worked his way through school to become a lawyer, she also doesn’t support Biden’s attempt to waive student loan debt: “If I was able to to do it, I feel that they should.”
Curt Balch, 44, worked in the health care industry and is now a stay-at-home dad. He was weathering a two-hour school delay with his 5-year-old daughter in his home in Hellertown, in a more rural part of the county. He registered Republican so he could vote in primaries, but describes himself as more libertarian.
Balch said the messaging by both sides is “pretty toxic” when they warn that the other is “a threat or a danger to the fundamentals of the country moving forward.”
He supported Trump in the past two elections but is open to considering other candidates this year, especially if he thinks there is an appealing third-party or independent candidate. Balch believes the dire warnings about a potential second Trump term are overblown. Balch 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 getting people to the polls. I don’t think people are legitimately thinking that they need to be afraid of Donald Trump.”
Christian Miller was a lifelong Democrat but became an independent in 2022 out of frustration with political gridlock and a sense that as he got older, he was growing more conservative.
He said he might one day consider switching to the Republican Party, but not as long as Trump is leading it. That’s not out of any worry that Trump would become a dictator if he wins a second term.
“I don’t know that I fear it as much as it’s being made out to be in the media from either side,” said Miller, a 53-year-old bank executive who lives in Nazareth. “I feel that the institutions are safe and and are strong enough to withstand the challenges.”
Miller cited the dozens of failed court challenges seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential results by Trump and his allies as an example of the institutions holding firm.
Surveys indicate concern about the state of democracy, but it’s not clear how that will translate in November’s election. A Biden campaign spokesperson said the democracy message is central to the campaign but it is not the only one the campaign will use to reach voters. Protecting abortion rights and fighting for higher wages will be among the issues essential to the president’s pitch.
Northampton County, especially Bethlehem, has been slowly emerging from the economic shock that followed the collapse of the local steel industry. The plant produced the steel that built the Golden Gate Bridge during the Great Depression and a decade later, during World War II, became the country’s largest shipbuilder.
The blast furnaces, which fell silent nearly 30 years ago, are still visible for miles as they sit alongside the Lehigh River. But Bethlehem has been enjoying a revival in recent years as it has evolved into a hub for health care and technology companies. New shops, an art center, museum, performing arts stage and a casino, among other developments, have added vibrancy to a picturesque city dotted with historical structures dating to the 18th century.
Northampton also is a historical bellwether. As the county has gone in the presidential election, so has the state, said Christopher Borick, a political science professor and director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg University in Allentown. The last time they split was 1948, when the county voted for Democrat Harry Truman but the state went for Republican Thomas Dewey.
