How Trump made small-town America matter again
The first time Donald J. Trump stepped onstage in Pennsylvania in April 2016 at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, it was clear something very different was going on in this state, with this candidate.
It was not because the rally was massive, or because it was boisterous, or that it was poorly organized, though all those things were true.
Having already attended 18 of his rallies throughout primary states across the country, I found, in fact, that it looked very familiar.
It was different because it was in Pennsylvania.
It was a campaign that was designed to fail from the very beginning.
Trump had no grass-roots organization in the first caucus state of Iowa, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush had locked up the best operative in the Hawkeye State. Trump didn’t have any street cred with evangelical voters, while Texas Sen. Cruz not only had that, he had an app to get them out to vote.
The first time Donald J. Trump stepped onstage in Pennsylvania in April 2016 at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, it was clear something very different was going on in this state, with this candidate.
It was not because the rally was massive, or because it was boisterous, or that it was poorly organized, though all those things were true.
Having already attended 18 of his rallies throughout primary states across the country, I found, in fact, that it looked very familiar.
It was different because it was in Pennsylvania.
It was a campaign that was designed to fail from the very beginning.
Trump had no grass-roots organization in the first caucus state of Iowa, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush had locked up the best operative in the Hawkeye State. Trump didn’t have any street cred with evangelical voters, while Texas Sen. Cruz not only had that, he had an app to get them out to vote.