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US presidential election 2016

Philadelphia - Pennsylvania’s Democrat bastion against Trump

"Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburg surrounded by rural Alabama," is how one-time Clinton campaign staffer James Carville described the Keystone State. In the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia it is hard to find traces of Trump, but you can find them if you look.

Trump campaign office in South street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Trump campaign office in South street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania RFI/Jan van der Made
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The office in South Street between 8th and 9th  Street is temporarily made in a deserted beauty salon, next to an i-Phone repair shop.

In the shop window posters call upon people to vote for Trump, and send Hillary to jail. But the door is locked, and the office desks are empty.

Grassroot support

"The office was just opened in July, but canvassing and phoning around didn’t return the expected results," according to a staffer at the Clinton/(state senator Katie) McGinty campaign office, a bit further downtown near Temple University. "They concentrate on the suburbs."

The Democrat campaign office in Cecil Moore Street is large and cavernous, and seven staffers are standing in a circle discussing areas where volunteers might go in the coming days.

The campaigns rely on grassroot volunteers to do the cold calling and the door-to-door canvassing. But after the primaries, many volunteers for the Democratic Party had a hard time adjusting.

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US presidential election - Philadelphia volunteers

Jan van der Made

"It was a hard swallow," says former Bernie Sanders volunteer Dianne Walker, a retiree who spends two to three hours on the phone trying to convince people to vote Democrat.

Dianne Walker, Clinton volunteer
Dianne Walker, Clinton volunteer RFI/Jan van der Made

"But when you look at the candidates who are running, and I purposely waited till the field of the Republicans narrowed before I could say, of all the people remaining this is the person I believe I can stand behind and encourage, and go to bat for," she said,  adding that the Republicans’ final choice of Trump is "not a good idea."

Trump support

Volunteers in the bustling Clinton/McGinty office are not just American.

"I experienced the Brexit vote and I feared something similar happened here," said John Kaddock, a PhD student from Wales.

John Kaddock, Clinton volunteer from Wales
John Kaddock, Clinton volunteer from Wales RFI/Jan van der Made

"I had a month to spare, I decided to come over and help. I wasn’t overly keen on crossing the Seventh Seal and unleashing the apocalypse so I put up campaign for Hillary Clinton."

Kaddock went straight into a bar full of Trump supporters, but decided quickly to turn back.

"It went a bit quiet, and it only took about twenty, maybe thirty seconds for racially dubious comments to arise. At at that point I thought, I am unlikely to convince them, so I finished my drink and we are done."

A tour around the North-Eastern suburbs of Philadelphia shows some houses that have Trump signs in their front gardens, but voters seem to be split over independent candidates Edward Clifford and Everett Stern, but even in the suburbs, Clinton advertisements seem to dominate.

Not so in the countryside. Traditionally, the East of Pennsylvania is dominated by Amish and Quaker communities. "The Amish are mostly a-political," says Joe Schwartz, a political scientist with Temple University in Philadelphia.

"But there is some support for Trump in Amish counties. [Pennsylvania] is also a state of small cities and towns, and there are more cities of between 50.000 and 100.000 inhabitants than in the rest of the country and they tend to vote conservative."

Most Clinton/McGinty volunteers are convinced of a Democrat victory. But it may not come without problems, and some are even afraid of intimidation by pro-Trump activists.

"People are easily intimidated and women in particular they are going to have an issue with this," says Dianne Walker, who remembers the troubles she, and other African Americans had during the civil rights movement.

"They stand outside the voting places, ask who you are voting for, prevent you from going in," she remembers.

Trump is already fighting Democrat dominance in Pennsylvania’s cities, claiming massive voter fraud in previous elections, where according to him John McCain won zero percent of the votes and Barack Obama 100 percent.

"Even Fidel Castro didn’t do that well," according to Bill Been, a retired Pittsburg pro-Trump activist.

But the Democrats reject the allegations. "Voter fraud in terms of individuals impersonating others, claiming to be citizens, all the social science says that’s incredibly rare and basically non-existant," says Joe Schwartz.

"Of course sometimes incumbents might try to use influence with electoral officials to sort of play with the vote-count," but this, he says is not very credible.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania remains an important swing state and the one who wins it may win the day.

"I think it is very difficult for Trump to win the whole thing if we win Pennsylvania," says Kaddock.

"I can see us winning Philadelphia, I can see us winning Michigan, I can see us winning Colorado, and if we win those three states, I think essentially [Hillary]’s won the election. But it will be closer than what people thought a few weeks ago," he says.

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