JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Joe Biden capped a daylong train tour through Ohio and Pennsylvania on Wednesday by reaching back to a core part of his political identity: decades spent taking Amtrak from Washington home to Delaware every night to be with his children.
“I want to thank the good people of Amtrak who kept me moving today, and throughout my whole career,” Biden said at an evening drive-in rally here. The Democratic presidential nominee said Amtrak “brought me back to my home base every single night. … I always remembered what and who really mattered.”
He recalled long rides looking out “at all those homes I’d pass, middle class neighborhoods like I was raised in,” and talking to passengers about their hopes and needs — before contrasting that with President Donald Trump, who he called a “self-serving, self-entitled president.”
“He doesn’t have a plan to help you or deliver relief to the people who need the most help,” Biden said of Trump.
Biden’s 10-hour “whistle stop tour” started in Cleveland, the site of Tuesday night’s presidential debate. Earlier in the day, Biden called the debate “national embarrassment.” The acrimonious and chaotic nationally televised forum was marked by Trump repeatedly interrupting Biden, personal insults, and continuous cross-talk between the candidates and moderator Chris Wallace. That prompted the presidential debate commission to say Wednesday that it would make changes to the format to avoid a repeat.
The Pennsylvania leg of Biden’s tour started in Pittsburgh and was meant to drum up support from working class voters in a Trump-friendly part of the state, with stops in Greensburg, Latrobe, and then Johnstown. He was greeted in Johnstown by a small tailgate awaiting him at the train station and about 100 onlookers packed onto the nearby Walnut Street Bridge.
Janina Jolley, 64, traveled a couple hours south from Clarion County. Biden’s stops in rural Pennsylvania will matter, she said.
“This is a statement,” Jolley said. “It’s a very important statement because this is an area that has felt left behind.” A retired psychology professor, Jolley said she’s sensing energy in her very conservative county that wasn’t there in 2016. Given how competitive Pennsylvania is, she thinks it can make a difference.
“There’s no way Clarion County goes for Biden, but there’s a good chance we can get 200 votes” per precinct, Jolley said.
Alex Ciotti, 33, a labor organizer here on leave from Cambria County’s health and human services department, said Biden’s visit gives “a little hope because living here you can feel overwhelmed with all the hard-right, conservative voices. There are liberal voices but they’re quiet. This turns the volume up.”
Cars were decorated in “Ridin with Biden” and “Bye Don” signs. A screen played campaign videos to pump up the crowd ahead of Biden’s arrival, including one narrated by Scranton natives and another about Biden’s history with Amtrak.
That train affinity was on full display throughout the day. “I love being on the train,” Biden told reporters onboard. The conductor, Don Lewis, 63, has worked for Amtrak for 46 years, and this was his final ride before retiring.? Before rolling into Johnstown, Biden had a banana split, a signature dish in Latrobe, and then he and his wife, Jill Biden, called Mrs. Joanne Rogers, widow of the late Mr. Rogers (who lived there). She had previously endorsed him.?
Former State Sen. John Wozniak, who represented the area for two decades, also attended the rally and said Biden’s stop here was a necessity. “He has to. … This is the meat and potatoes of Pennsylvania and Democrats lost it,” Wozniak said. “We’ve watched it go from very blue to very, very red. … It’s time to re-energize, and bring our roots back to where they belong. I think Joe Biden is the man to do it. He understands small town problems and small town people.”
At the Greensburg train station, about 50 people lined up across from the platform to see Biden’s train pull in, holding up Biden-Harris signs and a few in “Make America Sane Again” red caps.
Deb Marchelleta, a retired nurse’s aide, waited with her friend Becky Rugh, both from the Greensburg area. Marchelleta’s dad was a steel worker and she was in the nurses’ union, so being a Democrat runs in her blood, she said. But Marchelleta said this election is about more than party loyalty. She called Trump dangerous.
“I feel that if Biden doesn’t win this election, it’s the end of democracy and the republic is done, I really believe that,” she said. Marchelleta, 68, planned to travel to as many train stops as she could get to and try to catch a glimpse of Biden at as many as she could. “He’s a good man and he’s our only hope,” she said.
Biden’s latest of many trips to Pennsylvania — a critical battleground state seen as increasingly likely to determine the winner between him and President Donald Trump — ventures into the heart of the state’s Trump Country. Some of the towns on his itinerary Wednesday are in counties that voted for Trump by double digits in 2016, and where Republicans have made voter registration gains since. But there are signs of a slight erosion in Trump’s support in the southwest, driven in part by white working class voters who are more open to Biden than they were to Hillary Clinton.
Southwestern Pennsylvania has been a frequent destination for Trump, too. He held large airport rallies in Latrobe and Pittsburgh this month. Westmoreland County, home to Greensburg and Latrobe, saw the state’s largest net increase in registered Republicans in the last four years, adding about 10,000 voters to GOP ranks. In Cambria County, home to Johnstown, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost 15,000 voters in 2016. Now the county is almost evenly split.
Trump needs to hold his ground in the region given that Biden appears to be blowing him out in the state’s suburbs, including some gains even in more traditionally Republican ones like outside Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, Biden is beating Trump among white working class women, according to polls over the last week, and he’s eaten slightly into Trump’s support among white working class men. All three were factors in new surveys showing Biden up by 9 points in the state.
He’s built that advantage partly by centering his campaign around appeals to these voters. Biden calls the election a battle between “Scranton and Park Avenue,” and now he’s got revelations about Trump paying just $750 in federal income taxes to add to the pile. Biden touted his everyman credentials at town hall this month outside Scranton, saying guys like Trump look down on people who went to state school — like Biden.
On his way to Pennsylvania, Biden stopped to speak to a crowd in Alliance, Ohio — a town he noted was formed because of two railroads intersecting there. He asked a gathered crowd, “Does your president understand what you’re going through? Does he see you where you are and where you want to be. … Or does he ignore you? Look down at you?”
Biden told the crowd about taking the train every day as a senator and using it as an opportunity to talk to working class people to understand their struggles.
While onboard, Biden chatted with Ohioans riding with him between stops in a train car with large glass windows, looking out on changing trees, farms, and lakes. As Biden pulled into the first station in Alliance, a large crowd was waiting, many with Biden signs, some with Trump signs.
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