A Pittsburgh, Pa., newspaper has backed Donald Trump just days before the general election in the paper’s first endorsement of a Republican presidential candidate since 1972.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette released its endorsement on Saturday, just before the general elections are set to take place. President Trump flipped Pennsylvania red during the 2016 elections, and the state’s fracking industry has become a major campaign issue, with Trump accusing Joe Biden of aiming to downsize the industry.
“We share the embarrassment of millions of Americans who are disturbed by the president’s unpresidential manners and character — his rudeness and put-downs and bragging and bending of the truth,” the Post-Gazette editors wrote. “But we believe Mr. Trump, for all his faults, is the better choice this year.”
The paper noted that while Trump has not accomplished enough for “middle America” and “the Appalachian and hourly worker,” he was the first to have “recognized them” and give them hope. Additionally, the editors wrote that while the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been lackluster, Trump has recognized that “we must not cower before the disease and we have to keep America open and working.”
While residents of Pittsburgh and its surroundings in Allegheny County backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, every other county in western Pennsylvania broke for Trump in 2016. Although RealClearPolitics polling averages gave Joe Biden a four-point lead in the state as of Sunday, Democrats are still worried that the state may help elect Trump once more, with the memory of polling failures still fresh.
“I am worried about Pennsylvania,” Democratic strategist Neil Oxman told the Washington Post on Saturday. Oxman said it was possible that Trump voters “will come out just a little bit stronger than our base.”