Biden will be in Pittsburgh for the city’s Labor Day parade, after traveling earlier this week to Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre.
Matt Freed/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP
Public polls — as well as other internals — have told a different story. An August survey by Susquehanna Polling and Research found Oz winning Republicans 78 percent to 13 percent, with 9 percent of GOP likely voters “still sitting on the fence.” Fetterman was ahead with Democrats 87 percent to 9 percent.
The location of Trump’s rally serves the dual purpose of attempting to troll Biden and build support for Mastriano and Oz in a key region: Trump will speak in Wilkes-Barre, just outside of Biden’s hometown of Scranton.
For his part, Biden will be in Pittsburgh for the city’s Labor Day parade, after traveling earlier this week to Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre.
Luzerne County, where Wilkes-Barre is located, has played an outsized role in recent presidential and congressional elections. In 2016 Trump flipped the county, a white working-class area that was ancestrally Democratic, going a long way’s toward allowing him to capture the state. In 2020, Biden wasn’t able to take Luzerne, but he narrowed Trump’s margin of victory there and ran up the score in next-door Lackawanna County, helping him win back Pennsylvania.
In this year’s primary, Oz won both counties, giving him a jumping-off point to build from, though Fetterman received more votes in them than Oz.
For Mastriano, the counties were a rare weak spot on the map during the primary, likely because his top opponent hailed from northeastern Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Shapiro, who is holding a campaign office opening on Saturday in Scranton, was the lone statewide Democratic candidate in 2020 to win Luzerne County.
“[Trump] will be incredibly well-received when he lands … it’s Trump country,” said Urban. “If you’re going to win in Pennsylvania, that’s where you need big Trump numbers.”
Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano gestures as he rallies with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, not pictured, in Pittsburgh, Friday, Aug. 19, 2022.
