Super supporters: These voters go above and beyond in their adoration for Trump, Biden
As the 2020 general election looms, all eyes are on Pennsylvania.
As a key battleground state with 20 Electoral College votes, Pennsylvania is viewed as a linchpin in the candidates’ hopes to win the presidency.
Here are eight Southwestern Pennsylvania voters who have gone above and beyond in their support for their candidate.
They share why they’re backing Democrat Joe Biden or trusting in four more years with President Trump.
Sis Mikita, Jefferson Township, Fayette County
Sis Mikita had a hard time finding Joe Biden yard signs. For her 91st birthday in September, the Fayette County New Deal Democrats group responded in a huge way — one sign for each year of her life, plus a few extras.
Sitting among nearly 100 signs staked in her front lawn, the lifelong Democrat talked about her plans to continue her blue streak. She doesn’t like the direction the country has been headed under the Trump administration and said she thinks Biden is the candidate to help steer it back on track.
“People need a better life. People need a better America,” she said.
One of her biggest concerns is Medicare and the price of prescription drugs. She worries about how she’ll continue to afford medicine for her macular degeneration and glaucoma.
“You’re paying so much for prescriptions you can barely make it,” she said. “We need someone in there that will help the people.”
Mikita understands the importance of voting. A former poll worker in Connellsville, she said she would make calls to people she knew if she hadn’t seen them at the polls by 5 p.m. on Election Day. If they didn’t have a ride, she’d pick them up. She said she didn’t care which way they were voting, just as long as they were voting.
This year, though, she hopes people vote blue.
“Vote Joe Biden for the needy, not Donald Trump the greedy,” she said.
Tricia Cunningham, Washington Township, Westmoreland County
Tricia Cunningham is all Trump, all the time.
Even her phone message — “God bless you and have a Trumptastic day” — gets in a pitch for the president.
The 48-year-old, who helped organize Team Trump PA and became a local leader of Women for Trump, took her devotion to Donald Trump to the heavens. On April 24, 2016, she helped organize “Jump for Trump,” a parachute jump designed to draw support to then-candidate Trump.
Trump was a good fit for the high-energy woman who began her professional career in talk radio in South Carolina and was among the first Western Pennsylvanians to embrace the Tea Party.
”My first impression of Donald Trump as he was coming down the escalator and he was introducing his campaign to the rest of the world was that he was going to solve all of the issues that were directly affecting my family, such as health care, illegal immigration and the veterans, and basically everything he spoke about that day was affecting my friends and family and folks I knew who were hurting,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham said she spent years living in South Carolina. She said frightening issues with illegal immigrants in that state’s vacation communities were covered up so tourism wouldn’t suffer. And she said she learned firsthand of the shortcomings in health care when her husband suffered a catastrophic accident and mounting hospital bills nearly resulted in the loss of the family home.
Although others see a lack of empathy in Trump, she sees someone who wants to help families like hers.
“He’s the guy who wants to get things done. He cares,” Cunningham said from her home, where the rustic decor is accented by her collection of Trump regalia.
She said she has seen a side of Trump few do. He’s written notes to her small granddaughter and promised a visit at next year’s Easter egg hunt.
“He’s a good man,” she said.
As if to go “Jump for Trump” one better in this campaign, this year Cunningham drove 7,538 miles through 21 states in 23 days to participate in Operation Flag Drop, where she delivered flags for the Trump campaign.
— Deb Erdley
Nat Yap, Shadyside, Pittsburgh
Until President Trump, Nat Yap believed most of our presidents — Democrat and Republican — have tried to do what they felt was in the best interest of the American people.
“I supported candidates from both parties in the past. I don’t do that anymore,” said Yap, 46. “This election, it’s easily the most important election in my lifetime because if it does not go the right way, I do firmly believe that America as we’ve known it, as a legitimate democracy, is probably over.”
In Yap’s view, Trump doesn’t understand or respect the U.S. Constitution. He puts himself above the country, doesn’t care about freedom of speech, freedom of the press or equal protection under the law. He retaliates against businesses who speak out against him, and for months purposely downplayed the seriousness of the covid-19 pandemic, Yap said.
“I am appalled at the attacks on the Constitution, at the attacks on individuals in this nation for being who they are,” Yap said. “I’m appalled about the attacks on women and their rights. I’m appalled with the attacks on truth, the attacks on science and facts and data.”
Yap is part of a group of activists, started on Facebook, who are involved in helping get progressives elected into office. They write postcards, send texts, make phone calls, encourage voter registration and raise funds. He said he wasn’t an activist until the 2016 election, when he recognized Trump was a threat to the country.
He’s voting for Biden because “he values the truth. He’s not going to lie to the American people relentlessly just to protect himself,” Yap said. “He doesn’t put himself first over the country or over the American people. I genuinely believe that. I’m not saying Joe Biden is perfect. No one is perfect, to be clear.”
Yap said he feels an immense responsibility to vote in a way that helps ensure the safety and security of the children — a daughter and a Latino son — he and his husband share.
“Our family is perhaps different than many others, and I want to make sure that we, and they, have the same rights and opportunities and respect and just that their dignity is valued and respected just as anyone else’s,” he said.
Dave and Rainey Craig, West Newton, Westmoreland County
Dave and Rainey Craig have enough Trump clothing in their wardrobe for every day of the week.
“I have a stack of shirts,” said Dave, 69.
“We’re ‘Trump’ every day,” said wife Rainey, 71.
The couple’s admiration for the current administration is evident inside their West Newton home. Rhinestone-studded MAGA hats and face masks fill a table. Another is decorated with commemorative coins and bills imprinted with Trump’s face. A life-size cardboard cutout of the president greets passersby from a living room window.
The Craigs cite his anti-abortion views, the economy and keeping jobs in America as some of the reasons they are voting to reelect Trump.
“The man didn’t need this position. I think he did it for the American people,” Dave said.
“He (ran for president) out of the love for his country,” Rainey agreed.
“A lot of people don’t like the way he talks, but he doesn’t mince words. He says a lot of stuff that we think. He doesn’t go politically correct.”
Rainey fears a Biden presidency will turn America toward becoming a communist country.
“We cannot afford to have him in office,” she said. “There will be no guns. We’ll be overrun with illegals.”
In their effort to support Trump and promote local Republicans, the Craigs hand out signs and literature about candidates. They attend most local rallies. Rainey also is a member of the National Federation of Republican Women.
They said it’s important for people young and old to get involved in politics.
“On (Nov. 3), we’re going to celebrate. The fourth, we’re going to collapse. And on the fifth, we’re going to get ready for the spring,” Rainey said.
Christine Baldonieri, Latrobe, Westmoreland County
Christine Baldonieri admits she was on Elizabeth Warren’s bandwagon before Warren suspended her presidential campaign earlier this year.
“She absolutely is a warrior for consumer protection,” said Baldonieri, 69. “(But) her policies were made to look like radical policies, and so they painted her as the radical left.”
She said she conceded Warren was going to be too much of a target, so she threw support behind Biden and began making daily calls for his campaign.
“I like the fact that he is going to unite the country,” she said. “He has a history of working with both sides of the aisle, and we have to get back to being able to talk to our families. We cannot have the animosity that this president has brought. (Trump) has done nothing but divide this country.”
Baldonieri is the committee chairperson for Latrobe. She has participated in marches: in support of women’s rights and the Black Lives Matter movement and against gun violence. She campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the last presidential election.
Baldonieri said she hopes Trump, whom she called “a criminal,” is voted out of office.
“He didn’t want to reveal his taxes, and people said that was OK? That is not OK,” she said. “I’m voting for Joe Biden to bring normalcy and unity back to this country, so that we can work to make America a better place for everyone.”
Ed Kroupa, Penn Township, Westmoreland County
Ed Kroupa said he believes Donald Trump was appointed by God.
“President Trump isn’t perfect, but none of us are,” he said. “(God) chose him to help the United States of America to return to our morals and the foundation of this country.”
Kroupa said he was a Democrat for 43 years before switching to the Republican Party in 2016.
“The (Democratic) party is not the party I grew up in,” he said.
He’s not in favor of socialism, he said, and he believes in America first — that the country should do what it can to help others, but Americans should come first. He’s against abortion and believes “God should be put back in all of the places we took Him out of,” he said. “We’re still ‘One Nation, Under God.’ ”
Kroupa said he likes that Trump is not a career politician. Ahead of the 2016 election, Kroupa said he prayed over which candidate to choose.
“I was lying in bed praying one night, and God has a sense of humor, too. It just came upon me (that God said), ‘I don’t have any other people to pick. Jesus is up here with me. No one is perfect on Earth.’ I found a little humor in that,” he said.
Since September, Kroupa said he has volunteered to help organize Trump rallies and parades in Irwin, Delmont, Hempfield and Rostraver. He helped plan a “flag relay” across Pennsylvania on Nov. 1 in which Trump supporters from the west and east sides of the state will parade along the turnpike and meet in Harrisburg.
Kroupa said he hopes everyone can get along no matter who wins the election.
“We need to be civil to one another in this country,” he said. “Our rallies have been about love of God, love of family, love of country and support for President Trump.”
Kim Neely, East Liberty, Pittsburgh
Kim Neely said she believes there is currently nothing “united” about the United States.
“Right now, we are so fractured and divided,” said Neely, 42. “We have elected a ‘Bully-in-Chief’ who is just not kind. So the things that he does, even my kids can sit there and look at it and be like, ‘Well, that’s not too nice,’ or ‘That’s not kind.’ ”
To Neely, every election is important, but this year it’s more personal. Since 2016, she said, she believes racism has become more mainstream. She always knew racism was prevalent in some parts of Pennsylvania, but it has never hit quite as close to home. She said she recently found a white supremacy recruitment flyer posted at a park she frequents with her sons, ages 11 and 6.
“I don’t want my kids to see that. I don’t want them to find that,” she said. “I can say in the last four years, my life is definitely worse than it was.”
She believes Joe Biden can help the mend the country.
“I think you need to have somebody who is going to listen to all perspectives and take that into consideration,” Neely said. “I feel like that’s what he does, and he actually has caring and compassion, which we really need right now. I think we need somebody who cares about all sides, whether you voted for them or not.”
For her part in supporting Biden’s campaign, Neely has been helping to get yard signs into the hands of people who want them. She has traveled to other counties for some and has delivered them throughout the region. Over the past few weeks, she said she also began volunteering to make literature drops around the city.
“Getting involved, in general, is something my grandmother did, so that’s kind of ingrained in me,” she said. “My father always said that she always made sure people were registered to vote. She was always a part of things.”
Melanie Patterson, Belle Vernon, Fayette County
Melanie Patterson was a Democrat until the 1990s.
Born and raised in Belle Vernon, Patterson, the daughter of a steelworker, said she watched the deterioration of small steel towns over the years. She said she believed the Democratic Party was full of empty promises when it came to bringing back industrial jobs and helping small towns.
“I’m proud of the area and want to see it prosper again,” she said.
She said she thinks reelecting President Trump will help make that happen.
“I think our president supports all our American values. Politicians are a dime a dozen. Leaders like him are priceless,” she said. “He believes in the American people.”
Patterson organized two “Rally on the River” events in September and October on 7 acres she owns in Monongahela. She decided to organize the rallies after the Republican National Convention — which she equated to a huge pep rally — was canceled because of the covid-19 pandemic. She said she was supposed to be an alternate delegate in the 14th congressional district.
She decided to instead bring the pep rally home.
Patterson’s rallies attracted about 3,000 people in all and resulted in dozens of new voters registered at the events.
The gatherings also were good for the local economy, she said. Small-business owners in Monongahela told her they saw an increase in foot traffic at their shops and restaurants on the days of the rallies — a needed boost for those affected by pandemic closures and restrictions.
“These small towns are taking a hit because of covid-19,” Patterson said.
She hopes four more years of Trump will help those struggling financially.
“This is about the American dream, and everyone has an American dream,” she said.
She said she fears that if Trump doesn’t get reelected, Americans might see that dream go away.
Kristina Serafini is a TribLive photojournalist covering Southwestern Pennsylvania. She is a Pittsburgh native and Point Park graduate. Her work has been honored locally and nationally. She can be reached at kserafini@triblive.com.
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