Nina Lakhani spoke to attendees of the president’s freezing cold campaign rally near Scranton:
Donald Trump made a last-minute stop to Joe Biden’s place of birth on the day before election day, delighting the president’s most fervent supporters.
“I love that he’s come to Biden’s hometown, I love it,” said Lori Vigliotti, who works for IBM in New York. “I love his honesty, his brashness, how tough he is. I love him.”
Few had a bad word to say about Trump’s track record, not even his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, despite the US death toll passing 231,000.
“He did a great job with Covid. China did it purposefully to bring down our economy, and we know that Joe Biden loves China, and that he’s criminal and corrupt. Anything that Trump did wrong before becoming president, he’s repented for,” said Mark Lazar, 56, a housing inspector.
There’s no evidence that China manufactured the novel coronavirus responsible for more than 1.2m deaths worldwide.
Among the single issue voters were Roxanne Piccoli, 30 and husband Brent Kravitz, who came with their three children aged 6, 5, and 2. They are QAnon followers who ardently believe in the debunked theory that Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the so-called deep state- an alleged secret network within the government and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanic pedophiles.
“The left try to pull on people’s heart strings by talking about racism and immigration, but all Donald Trump is trying to do is eliminate sex trafficking,” said Piccoli.
Trump has repeatedly refused to condemn the baseless theory.
While Cuban American Adriano Aguila, 22, a truck driver who lives in New Jersey, views Trump as an anti-socialist ally. “I love how he put a bounty on the head of Venezuelan dictator [Nicholas] Maduro and how he shut down travel from China to stop Covid. Honestly I am a Trump supporter, I can’t think of anything he’s done badly.”
Biden will be in Scranton and Philadelphia tomorrow, for a third consecutive day of campaigning in this must-win swing state.
