Trump’s harsher – Stumping in Lancaster County, Donald Trump leaned into sharper attacks on Hillary Clinton’s temperament and past conduct, while supporters split between upbeat hopes for an upset in Pennsylvania and fears of voter fraud. The tone shift unfolded as a New York T
MANHEIM, Pa.. — In Lancaster County. where Republicans have long felt in control. Donald Trump arrived Saturday to press supporters for what he framed as a path to winning Pennsylvania.. It was the kind of state-hype ritual that has played out before in presidential election years. with parties treating Pennsylvania as a must-win battleground while its urban centers keep pulling it in a different direction.
The stakes for the GOP are clear: Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes are tempting. and the party wants to pry the state from Democrats’ grasp.. Yet the political math and the geography have created a persistent problem.. Republicans have dominated the rural and suburban parts of the state. while Democrats’ advantages in Philadelphia. Pittsburgh. and other urban areas have been hard to overcome.. Even so. the poll averages put Trump within two points of Hillary Clinton statewide. and Democratic campaign veterans have insisted he cannot win by the margins they associate with a state-wide upset.
That push and pull helped shape Trump’s stop in Manheim. a setting designed to mobilize a Republican stronghold that he is counting on to deliver outsized turnout.. Lancaster County voted for John McCain by 13 points in 2008, and Romney beat Obama there by nearly 20 points in 2012.. The campaign message landed among supporters who see big margins in places like Lancaster as the lever that can overcome Democratic concentrations elsewhere.
But even before Trump took the stage. some supporters voiced unease about the way he has been conducting the final stretch of the campaign.. Julie Bayshore. a British-born immigrant to Lancaster County. said she liked Trump but wanted him to focus on issues that affect voters more than personal disputes.. “I like him a lot, I just hope that he knocks off the crap,” she said.. “We don’t need him to be fighting over [Alicia Machado]. we need him to be fighting for us.” Curt. a federal government employee from Baltimore who asked not to have his last name published. raised a similar complaint about distraction.. “He has that tendency sometimes of making some things too important. when he should be not focusing on that at all. ” he said.
Others pointed to the campaign’s restless cadence and the attention given to off-the-court controversies.. Tricia Lattimer, a Lancaster County resident, described reacting to Trump’s early-morning Twittering about Machado.. “I thought to myself, ‘Why is he up at 3 in the morning Twittering?’” she said.. “But then I thought. ‘Well. he doesn’t need as much sleep as Hillary Clinton.’ But he needs to let it go.”
In his remarks. Trump did not discuss Machado directly. but he used the time for extended attacks and grievance-style commentary about Clinton and the campaign process.. He complained that the debate went wrong for him after “they gave me a bum mic. ” adding. “How many people in this room think that maybe that was done on purpose?” He also returned to the media’s coverage of the Republican primary and his polling strength against GOP candidates he had already defeated. blasting “phony pundits” who. in his telling. misjudged his chances.
When Trump turned to Clinton, the language sharpened.. He mocked her pneumonia-induced dizzy spell at a 9/11 memorial. saying. “Here’s a woman. she’s supposed to fight all of these different things. and she can’t make it 15 feet to her car.” He said Clinton has “a bad temperament. ” then escalated the accusation by saying. “She could be crazy.. She could actually be crazy.”
He also linked Clinton to law enforcement and racism in a way he presented as a correction to what she had said at the debate.. Trump quipped that Clinton “all but said that most of the country is racist. including the men and women of law enforcement. ” calling the claim a “distortion” of her debate remarks about implicit bias in law enforcement and society.. After revisiting the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails. Trump declared. “she should be in prison. ” moving his rhetoric into the same space where his supporters chant. “Lock her up.”
Supporters in the crowd offered a range of explanations for why the sharper tone might be arriving now.. The timing of Trump’s venomous pivot was paired. during the speech. with a report published by the New York Times detailing how two decades ago Trump declared nearly a billion dollars in casino losses as income and. as a result. may have paid zero federal income taxes ever since.. The campaign provided an official statement to the Times that did not deny any of that.
In Manheim. the emotional temperature among Trump’s Pennsylvania faithful ran warm even as the words from the stage grew harsher.. Many people said they believed he would win the state. and the reasons varied—some pointed to the possibility of Trump votes that polls missed. others cited the number of Trump-Pence yard signs in their neighborhoods.. Some argued he could be unexpectedly strong with African-American voters. while others leaned on a more general optimism that early October in an election year tends to bring.
Not everyone stayed in that upbeat lane.. A Lancaster County Trump supporter said he was watching for voter fraud and believed Democrats were trying to “steal the state.” He said. “I’ve been told there’s people in Philadelphia — I know it’s happening in other places — they take dead people’s votes and throw them in for Democrats.” He described the decision as an expectation of manipulation rather than an electoral surprise.. When asked if he thought Trump would win Pennsylvania. he answered. “I hope he does.” Then. adding a harsher condition to that hope. he said. “And if he doesn’t. I think it’s rigged.”
The pattern on the ground was hard to miss: Trump’s rally drew a crowd primed for an upset built on Republican-heavy turnout like Lancaster’s past margins. but the same supporters who talked up that path also focused on his discipline. his personal battles. and fears that the result could be overturned—especially as new scrutiny landed on his tax history while he was still speaking.
Pennsylvania election Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Lancaster County battleground state electoral votes FBI emails implicit bias debate microphone voter fraud fears campaign rally federal income taxes