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‘This is our Agincourt’: Trump’s campaigners are pounding the streets of a crucial election battleground
They’re calling Pittsburgh and its surrounding area “ground zero” in this election and we joined a crack team of Trump troops on manoeuvres in this crucial battleground territory.
It’s 9am in a packed hotel room outside the city and the Mighty American Strike Force is mustering.
“You are in the arena,” an organiser tells them. “If you’re British,” nodding to us, “this is our Agincourt.”
The Mighty American Strike Force gathers in a hotel room
This is arguably the most important county in the most important swing state.
Pennsylvania looks like the tightest race after Kamala Harris lost her lead here a few days ago and it has the greatest number of electoral college votes, 19 of them.
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So, unless there is a big upset somewhere, whoever wins here wins the White House.
A Trump supporter told campaigners anyone who didn’t think the US had “fallen off a cliff” since Joe Biden was elected is “an idiot”
This has been Democrat country for decades, working-class industrial heartlands where the unions help deliver a Democrat vote and now more progressive liberals have reinforced the party’s urban strongholds.
But the Trump campaign sees an opening here and is out to exploit it.
Michael Hildreth talks to Pennsylvania voters
Church minister Michael Hildreth has driven for two days from Texas with his son to campaign in this crucial battleground state.
We join them and fellow campaigner Stacie, also from Texas, as they drive out into enemy territory, the Democrat suburbs, on the hunt for votes.
“Tensions are high,” he tells us. “This time, there’s hostility.”
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The first voter he speaks to on the porch of his house says he’s a “Kamala guy”.
The second says he never votes.
Pennsylvania is arguably the most important county in the most important swing state
But he and Stacie find potential recruits as they pound the pavements nearby.
“It’s Trump and Vance,” says one man. “Closed borders, economic freedom, inflation, less crime, a businessman who knows how to run a business.”
“Anybody who doesn’t think this country has fallen off a cliff in the last four years is an idiot,” another Trump supporter tells us.
The economy and affordability motivates most people in the Pittsburgh suburb
As we pause for breath, I ask Michael what made him drive all this way to help Trump win here.
For him, it’s about ending America’s wars overseas.
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“The left-wing people are psychopaths. I’m not saying every single person who’s a Democrat is,” he says.
“But the people in power, they’re all about the money. And people will die. People have already died.
“Hundreds of thousands have died in Ukraine. And we’re going to see maybe millions upon millions dying if we don’t stop this war.”
Whoever wins in Pennsylvania likely wins the White House
He is a preacher and a pacifist and believes Trump will end the Ukraine conflict and not let others happen, so his son is never drafted to fight for other people in far-off foreign countries.
Many voters they encounter have more mundane concerns, though.
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It’s the economy and affordability that motivates most people we find in the quiet sunny streets of this Pittsburgh suburb.
The Trump camp thinks it has a chance because of that: if it can make its mark here and elsewhere in this all important state, the former president will return to the White House.