MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In the swing state of Pennsylvania, Northampton County is both a bellwether and a boomerang. It tends to pick the winner in presidential elections - Barack Obama, then Donald Trump, then Joe Biden. Chris Borick says the shifts reflect the diversity of the Lehigh Valley, straddling the turnpike between Philadelphia and Scranton.
CHRISTOPHER BORICK: We've got a lot of individuals, multigenerational, working-class individuals, living close, side by side.
MARTIN: Borick lives in the community of Nazareth. He teaches political science and directs the Institute of Public Opinion at nearby Muhlenberg College.
BORICK: My house is next to a dentist office. Next door and across the street is the old Martin Guitar factory. It's that kind of mix between people, between different types of professions, different types of businesses that really produce the cocktail, if you will, that makes it such a competitive place.
MARTIN: A competition that's hard to escape.
BORICK: I just walked in my front door and picked up my daily load of mailers from the candidates. On a weekend, the streets abuzz with people coming from all the campaigns, knocking door to door. So it is about as energetic as an electoral scene as you could ever find.
MARTIN: Voter opinions in neighboring Bethlehem are as varied as the campaigns vying for their attention. A local activist, Kim Plyler, helped us invite both Democrats and Republicans to chat. Here's some of what we heard from Elizabeth Bennett, Jeff Opp, Amy Cohen, Garey Reister and Marty Plyler.
JEFF OPP: When Hillary lost the election in 2016, there was an outcry from the left-wing Democrats like, this is fake. This is not right. She won the election, including...
GAREY REISTER: She did. She won the popular vote.
MARTIN: Well, hold on. She did win the popular vote...
OPP: Well, wait, wait, wait..
MARTIN: But go ahead. Let him...
OPP: Now, that's why we have the Electoral College.
REISTER: The Electoral College is bogus.
OPP: No, you're wrong.
MARTIN: OK, OK. Garey, Garey. Help us.
OPP: No, you're wrong in that...
MARTIN: Garey.
OPP: And let me finish my point.
MARTIN: Yeah, let him finish his point.
OPP: The anger on the left side, the progressive Democrats...
ELIZABETH BENNETT: I have a 29-year-old son and a 26-year-old daughter. My daughter is now at risk, and my son is not. It's not about abortion. It's about rescinding our rights as women to make decisions about our health care.
OPP: Track record. You had four years of Donald Trump, and you look at the economics, we're stronger in the world. And then you look at four years of Biden-Harris - high inflation, no job creation, the economy is not as good as it was and we're weaker in the world.
BENNETT: It's difficult for people in the middle class, if you can call it the middle class anymore, to get a leg up. Republicans, especially - sorry, Jeff - are exploiting the pain that people feel economically in order to demonize each side.
MARTY PLYLER: I believe in honesty and transparency. Neither one of them are really honest, but Trump is less honest than Kamala. So that's how I see it.
OPP: He is sometimes a real jerk, but I look at the results. And sometimes you can have a boss that's a jerk, but at the same time, if he produces results, he produces results. And I'm going with Trump on that.
MARTIN: Heated moments, but these voters made a point to hug it out afterward. And like other places in Pennsylvania we visited, we heard a longing for more civility, less heat, more space for a middle ground.
REISTER: I remember watching William F. Buckley on TV. We would have a debate with a Democrat and a Republican. And they actually - you listen. And sometimes you agreed with - even though you may be a Democrat, you agreed with a couple of things Republicans said, and other times, you didn't. And that does not take place anymore.
MARTIN: We had this conversation inside one of the entertainment venues that now occupy an area where Bethlehem steel was produced. These massive blast furnaces dating back to the time of the Civil War went silent in 1995. Almost 30 years later, they're surrounded by a park and performing arts venues that former mayor and county executive Don Cunningham helped bring to life. Cunningham and I talked in the shadow of those blast furnaces, now rusting but surrounded by a landscaped walkway.
People say - used to say all politics is local. Remember that? People used to say all...
DON CUNNINGHAM: It's all national now. Unfortunately, like, the work that we've done here to revitalize this area...
MARTIN: Yeah.
CUNNINGHAM: Quite honestly, it didn't involve presidents. It was us.
MARTIN: Yeah, yeah.
CUNNINGHAM: You know, it went on for 20-plus years. Democrats, Republicans came and went from the White House, and we kept our head down and did what we needed to do.
MARTIN: Do you think you could get elected today?
CUNNINGHAM: I don't think so.
MARTIN: How come?
CUNNINGHAM: I'm not ideological enough for today. I probably couldn't get through a primary.
MARTIN: He's talking about the kind of sharp divides that political scientist Chris Borick says may explain why the campaigns target Northampton County.
BORICK: If there's one word I've said over and over and over throughout the fall, it's margin, because it is a state that is won and lost on the margin. Everybody's looking for the magical group. They're saying, what's the key group? What's the group that's going to change Pennsylvania? And I say all of them.
MARTIN: In the first ward of the borough of Nazareth, just three votes made the difference in 2020. In a swing ward in a swing town, swing county and swing state, this year's outcome is almost impossible to predict. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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