Trump’s popularity in Schuylkill County remains high as analysts examine why

When Donald Trump came to Scranton as a presidential candidate in 2016, he made a promise that drew a standing ovation from the crowd.

Trump said that he would bring anthracite coal mining back in a big way to northeast Pennsylvania, though much of the industry had died out in the 1950s.

That message excited the largely blue-collar crowd, as did much of Trump's speech, said Chris Borick, who was In the audience that day and is now a professor of political science and director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

Trump won that election with strong support from the region including Schuylkill County, where he received nearly 70 percent of the vote, a percentage that has barely budged in the two subsequent presidential elections.

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The fact that Trump did not restore coal mining in the area does not seem as important to his base as his pitch is, Borick said.

Trump tells them that the government has mostly failed the region, including Schuylkill County, and again vows to have those people's backs, Borick said.

"It's not necessarily the details they're looking at, but the broader argument that he is on their side," Borick said. "Even if the evidence isn't always there, they believe in him. His message absolutely resonates here, and his core doesn't deviate all that much."

Trump received 51,416 votes in Schuylkill County this election and Vice President Kamala Harris received 20,729, according to final but unofficial results.

Many of those who voted for Trump feel that the global economy has hurt them, so they like his promises of tariffs, his plans to curtail free trade, and also his bombastic style, Borick said.

"They have the idea that they were sold out by the corporate elites, and that government economic policies have not protected them. Trump has tapped into that," he said. "It's undeniable that he's a master salesman. He has been his whole life."

The county's demographics also align well with Trump's base, with an above average percentage of whites, an older population, and a high concentration of working class voters, he said.

"That is the very heart of his constituency," Borick said.

Trump won all but one of the 125 voting precincts in Schuylkill County this election, with the exception being the second precinct in Pottsville's third ward, which Harris won by 15 votes.

That means for the third straight election Trump has virtually swept the county. While his Republican predecessors — John McCain and Mitt Romney — won Schuylkill in 2008 and 2012, they did not receive close to the percentages of votes that Trump has, and both lost their races to President Barack Obama.

McCain received 53.1 percent of Schuylkill's vote and Romney got 55.6 percent, while Trump received 69.4, 69 and 70.5 percent in 2016, 2020 and 2024, respectively.

The percentage of voters in Schuylkill registered as Republicans has grown over the past 15 years, which has benefitted Trump, but he was also the cause for some of that party switching, said Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research and also the Floyd Institute for Public Policy at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.

The Republican party currently has a more than 2-1 edge in registered voters in Schuylkill, according to the county election bureau.

"The county has gone from being moderately Republican to strongly Republican," Yost said, and the same is true for much of northeast Pennsylvania. "It's certainly taken a turn."

That is largely because white, working class voters are drawn to Trump's promises, especially those living in counties that have lower percentages of college graduates, and median household incomes below the state average, he said.

Many of those voters who have struggled with inflation have blamed those higher prices on Biden and Harris, he said.

"They feel left behind," he said, and they expect Trump to change that.

Among Schuylkill County municipalities and election precincts, Trump received his highest total in South Manheim Township, where 1,348 voters cast ballots for him, representing 74.4% of the vote.

He took more than 80% of the vote in 10 precincts led by Eldred Township where he won 84.9% of the votes, followed by Upper Mahantongo Township at 83.8, Hegins Township east at 81.8 percent, Hubley Township at 81.5, Tremont Township at 81, Porter Township east at 80.6, Porter Township west at 80.5, Tower City at 80.4, Pine Grove Township's first precinct at 80.3, and Washington Township south at 80.2.

With many tight races at the national and state levels, Trump likely also bumped up vote totals among other Republican candidates just enough to give them narrow wins, Borick said.

If the Democratic party wants to raise the number of its registered voters, it must do a better job of talking about its candidates' successes in helping blue collar workers and families, said Schuylkill County Democratic Committee Chairman Todd Zimmerman.

For example, he said that President Joe Biden's infrastructure legislation helped fund the reconstruction of Route 61 between St. Clair and Frackville, his CHIPS and Science Act has boosted local manufacturing, his work on lowering drug prices has greatly reduced the cost of insulin and other widely used prescriptions, and his economic policies have lowered unemployment and more recently inflation and interest rates.

Zimmerman worries that if Trump follows through on his pledge of mass deportation, it will create a worker shortage in industries where immigrants now do the bulk of the work, ranging from lettuce picking to roofing.

"It could be a rude awakening," he said. "We need those workers."

Still, many still think Trump is the one most likely to assist the working class, Zimmerman said. The economy is already strong and will likely continue that trend, which many will credit to the incoming president, he said.

Schuylkill County Republican County Chairman Gary Feathers was not available for comment.

Zimmerman recommended that the next Democratic presidential candidate visit more sites that have benefited from their policies and stage fewer rallies.

In Schuylkill there were actually close to 500 more voters for Harris this election than there were for Biden in 2020, Zimmerman said, which was the party's goal.

But that was not the case in many counties, including Philadelphia, where Harris received fewer votes than Biden not because people switched to Trump, but because they didn't vote at all, he said.

That is a problem the party must solve, he said.

"Democrats didn't come out," he said. "It's our fault."