Why residents of Biden’s childhood street are VERY nervous about Kamala Harris’ chances in a state that could decide the election

Joe Biden’s connection to his hometown of Scranton burns so strongly that he keeps coming back to the childhood home where he spent his first decade. 

But neighbors down the block are nervous that Kamala Harris doesn’t have what it takes to win over residents of the president’s beloved home state of Pennsylvania.

The Keystone State and its 19 electoral college votes could determine the outcome of general election and has been the focal point of both campaigns in recent weeks.

‘People like me have more of a connection to him than her, even though he’s endorsed her,’ said Jamie Hayes, 73, a retired university worker who scoped out the race from a neighbor’s porch a few doors down from the home where Biden forged lifetime bonds.

‘So I’m behind her, and I’m certainly against the other side. But I think any help they can get in Pennsylvania would be a good thing, because we know it is key. And so does Trump,’ she added, saying Biden could provide a needed ‘boost.’

Hayes was there when residents crowded around Biden during his last visit to his his old Green Ridge neighborhood as part of a campaign reboot. 

Biden said at the time he looked at the economy ‘through the eyes of Scranton’ rather than the eyes of Mar-a-Lago. He also came on Election Day 2020. 

Hayes worries that after getting a debate bump, the hurricanes and war in Israel are putting Harris in a precarious position with voters. ‘It’s definitely scary for me,’ she says. 

Having worked with young students, she says the Democrats may need to draw on celebrity endorsements like Taylor Swift to motivate voters. ‘I know the impact she has, but that’s what they’re going to need to do,’ she said.

Over at Hank’s Hoagies, a Biden favorite just steps from his old home, retired software engineer Deanne Loftus called Biden’s decision to step back ‘selfless,’ and says Harris has her vote. 

She has only an inkling Harris can prevail. ‘I think so. I’m worried about the Senate race,’ she says, pointing to the bid by Scranton native Sen. Bob Casey, who grew up a few blocks away.

It’s not just the sandwiches and the old memories that keep Biden coming back. ‘Scranton climbs in your heart. There’s no way of getting it out, even if I wanted to. I don’t,’ the president said days ago in his eulogy here for childhood friend Tommy Bell at St. Paul’s Catholic Church, where he worshipped as a kid. 

It’s a potential well of Democratic support surrounded by rural areas where Trump has been making inroads in a state Biden snatched away from him in 2020. Biden beat Trump in Lackawanna County that year, prevailing by 9,000 votes and winning it 54 to 45. Scranton has a population of about 75,000.

‘If we win Pennsylvania we win the whole thing. It’s over – the whole thing,’ Trump said during his trip to the state for a pair of rallies Wednesday, including one in Scranton that drew a few thousand. 

Top political experts agree. Pennsylvania, because of its trove of 19 electoral votes, the closeness of the polls, and the way it is flipped between Trump and Biden, is the country’s most contested state. For Harris, it’s the most worrisome section of the ‘blue wall.’

One of those Trump voters in Biden’s neighborhood is John, a Scranton firefighter and union member who didn’t want to give his second name, and who is sticking with the former president after previously voting for Barack Obama. (The international firefighters union was the first to back Biden in 2020 and didn’t make an endorsement this year.)

‘When he was in the first time around, the economy was good. I know some of that’s attributable to Barack Obama before him. But I do like his hardline stance on both domestic foreign policy and promoting economic growth here in the United States, he says while walking his Dachshund by Biden’s old house.

Just a few steps up a hill from Biden’s childhood home is Marywood University, a Catholic institution where some students earned extra credit by registering to vote.

Mia Scotti says she’ll cast her first vote for Trump. ‘I just feel like he has more of a voice, and he’s done it before,’ she said while taking a break from studying in the school’s education program.

Baden Hancock, a freshman studying mathematics, is also preparing to cast his first vote for Trump, after earning five extra points in his Psychology class after registering. The golf enthusiast is hoping to scrape together enough money to buy a sporty new Maza sports car.

‘Maybe I do agree with him,’ he says of Trump. ‘I just want a better economy.’ As for Harris, ‘I don’t think she’s as strong as Trump. I think she would just like be a weaker candidate, I think Trump, I know he’s gonna do what he says he’s gonna do.’

Biden hasn’t lived in the Green Ridge neighborhood since 1952. But there’s another real Biden Street in Scranton – renamed after he was elected in the city’s struggling downtown. (There is also a Biden expressway with big green signage that takes drivers off the highway of Pennsylvania Route 307).

As in many industrial downtowns, there are signs of economic problems on Biden street, which is dotted with vacant businesses – including one in a prominent corner decorated with Trump signs. 

But here, Harris has already snagged exactly the kind of vote she needs if she is to carry the state inside a Lackawanna County government center located just a few yards below Biden Street.

Dave Castellani, a self-described right-wing Republican and retired Proctor & Gamble employee, had just dropped off his vote for Harris Wednesday.

Asked how he feels after his vote, he replied, ‘That’s questionable.’  

‘You’ve got to look at the worst of two evils,’ he continued,

‘You know, you may not think that Harris is the greatest, is going to be the greatest president, but then you look at Trump, and you’ve got to make a decision whether you’re going to stay with the Constitution or you’re going to look at somebody who wants to try to be a whatever he wants to be – He wants to be somebody that is like Putin,’ he says after dropping off his ballot.

‘He’s got a huge following, so it’s like a cult situation. I mean, you look at his vice president, all the people that worked with him said that he shouldn’t be in office. He’s a danger to the Constitution, to the American way of life. And I believe that,’ said Castellani, who voted for Trump in 2016.

‘At that time, I thought that it was a possibility be that he would be a different kind of a person,’ he said.