The gate is closed, the Butler agricultural fair is deserted, and the emotion has subsided. It is here, in this town in Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh, that history almost changed on July 13, when a young man tried to assassinate Donald Trump in the middle of a meeting; the bullet grazed his ear. The scene, immortalized by the cameras, made history, with a furious president, screaming at his supporters « fight, fight, fight ! » (“fight!”). That day, everyone believed that the campaign for the presidential election on Tuesday, November 5 was over, with this twist of fate, attributed to God by some of Donald Trump's supporters in the face of an aging Joe Biden. Then the Democratic president had to throw in the towel on July 21, giving way to his vice-president, Kamala Harris, and relaunching the race for the White House.
Long before July 13, Pennsylvania was the heart of the electoral battleground. According to the adage, “whoever wins Pennsylvania wins the American election”. This was the case in 2016, when Republican Trump won this state – which is part of the Rust Belt, due to significant deindustrialization – and its 20 major voters with a 44,000 vote lead. out of some 7 million voters. It was again in 2020, when the Democrat Biden, a native of the state, was declared the winner, after several days of recounting the votes and 81,000 votes more than his rival. And it will undoubtedly still be on the evening of November 5. On the eve of the election, the polls show the two candidates neck and neck, impossible to decide in advance.
A curious state, founded in 1681 by the English religious reformer William Penn, today populated by 13 million inhabitants and with an area equal to a fifth of France, Pennsylvania has no unity, hosting two major metropolises , the short-lived capital of the Union, Philadelphia, where the American Constitution was written in 1787, and the steel city of Pittsburgh, incarnation of the industrial revolution. Both are Democrats, separated by hilly countryside, populated by Mormons, Protestant farmers or former coal miners, won over to the Republicans.
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In Butler, where early voting was held on Monday October 28, there remains nothing, or almost nothing, of the drama of July. Across from the scene of the attack, the market gardener who sells pumpkins during this Halloween season does not want to talk. “I manage my post-traumatic stress”, she confides. This is not the case for Chelsea Rowe, 33, reception assistant for agricultural equipment seller M&R Power Equipment, who displays a cynicism unusual in the United States: “The FBI came for a week and they left. For a moment we thought the shot had been fired from our roof. We had closed, it gave us a day off”, she replies with a smirk. His colleague, Justin Olayer, a deliveryman for the company, thinks that the attack strengthened Donald Trump. “You won't find many Democrats here. I'm on the road every day. You only see Trump signs, very little Kamala. Only Pittsburgh and Philadelphia vote Democratic, all the rest are Republican. »
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