Trump’s strong support in the Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pa. is splintering: ‘He left nothing for the working man’

Scowling under a wool cap and a hood, Robert DeJesus stood in the bitter wind outside the Sunrise Diner in Allentown last week and confessed his “big mistake:” voting for President Donald Trump in 2024.

“The guy makes ‘cookie promises,’” said DeJesus, 57, a retired construction worker and independent voter from Allentown in Lehigh County. “They’re easy made and easy broken.”

Trump’s biggest gains in the state in 2024 were concentrated in the Lehigh Valley and in Northeastern Pennsylvania. But a year into his second presidency, there are signs that his winning coalition is splintering. In interviews across five counties in the region, some voters shared their disappointment with rising grocery prices and what they see as Trump’s failure to keep his commitments.

Even while hailing some of Trump’s policies, several Republicans interviewed said they were put off by his manner as well as his stance on key issues. That disillusionment could spell trouble for Pennsylvania Republicans as they look to hold onto two key swing congressional seats in this region in November.

Explaining his problems with Trump, DeJesus said the president pledged “but didn’t deliver” lower grocery prices. And at the same time DeJesus and his family are contending with “insane” supermarket costs, he said, Trump cut taxes for billionaires with the sweeping domestic policy packaged he signed last year. It’s made DeJesus feel overlooked and overwhelmed.

“He left nothing for the working man,” DeJesus said. “People say it’s good the price of gas went down under Trump. But how we have to live, with high food and high rent, makes no sense.”

Diana Kird, 58, a Republican who also pulled the lever for Trump, is experiencing buyer’s remorse much like DeJesus.

“I don’t know what we’re doing in Venezuela,” said the nurse from Lehighton in Carbon County as she stood outside a Giant supermarket in town.

“We need to stop getting into foreign wars,” a promise Trump made and “ignored,” Kird added.

Kird said she has seen Trump come through on his commitments. “He’s wash-rinse-repeat for me,” she said, “saying the same things over again,” such as promising cheaper groceries, “yet doing nothing.”

Trump’s “refusal to release all the Epstein files” after saying he would was another disappointmentthat makes her wish she hadn’t supported the president,she added.

The president won’t be on the ballot this year, but Kird plans to take her frustration out on U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, the freshman Republican who won the Lehigh Valley seat by a single point.

Mackenzie and fellow freshman U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a Republican who won his neighboring Northeastern Pennsylvania district by less than a point, are among the top targets for Democrats in November as the party hopes it can win back the House with a focus on affordability.

In a statement Wednesday, Mackenzie blamed the Biden administration for high prices and described Trump as “a vital partner” in efforts to improve the cost of living.

“We have made real progress,” he said, “reducing gas prices to their lowest level since COVID, keeping inflation below 3%, and delivering real tax relief for every American.”

Bresnahan’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance barnstormed through the region last month, seeking to counteract Democrats’ affordability message, which Trump has bemoaned as a “hoax.”

But recent moves by Mackenzie and Bresnahan show the two Republicans are giving the issue more weight and seeking to distance themselves from Trump on the high cost of living ahead of tough contests in November.

Both were among the 17 Republicans who crossed the aisle this month to support a Democratic bill to restore recently expired healthcare subsidies in the wake of a national spike in insurance premiums.

“The break with the president on healthcare wasn’t surprising. Both men are feeling the heat from constituents,” said Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.

Borick noted that Trump’s 2024 win in the state was due in large part to his gains in voters of color, younger voters, and independents. These same voters could be crucial to determining how Pennsylvania votes in the next election.

“But now they’re disappointed.”

There were warm feelings for Trump at the Coop, a popular diner in Coopersburg, a town just outside Allentown in Lehigh County.

“Trump’s a confident and honest man who knows business, and made a lot of money. I so admire him. And we need him,” said Tiffany Osmun, 27, who works as a host at the restaurant.

“He’s fearless, and not afraid of what he has to do,” Osmun said.

She plans to vote for Mackenzie in November, she said, adding, “I won’t be voting for any Democrat in the midterms.”

And if Trump ever popped up in another election, Osmun said, “I’d vote for him again.” Trump referenced running for a third term in his Pennsylvania speech last month, despite constitutional barriers.

Other Trump voters, however, acknowledged frustrations with the first year of his second presidency — even if they’re pleased with most of Trump’s policies.

“I don’t like his personality,” said Bud Hackett, 72, a semi-retired construction business owner who lives in Bethlehem.

Hackett praised Trump’s moves to curtail immigration and shrink the size of the federal workforce, but he bristled at other actions.

“I’d say over the last year, he’s done maybe 100 things, 70 of which will result in people’s lives being better off. The other 30 have to do with stuff like building a huge ballroom [after tearing down the East Wing of the White House] for his giant, weird ego that I can’t buy into.”

Trump may have generated a few problems on the home front, conceded soft-drink merchandiser Bobby Remer, a 31-year-old resident of Palmerton in Carbon County. But the president more than compensates by reminding the world just how powerful the United States can be, he said.

Remer supports the president’s attacks on boats allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, as well Trump’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

“He’s done great militarily, throwing our swag around,” Remer said. “It’ll show China, which floods America with fentanyl to wipe out our military-aged men with addiction, that we have a hammer that we’ll use against any nation trying to destroy us.”

But pocketbook issues could matter more in November to other voters — especially after Trump made attacking Democrats on inflation a major theme of his 2024 campaign.

An October poll from Franklin and Marshall College asked voters in the Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania how they’d compare their financial status to a year ago. Around 29% of Republicans said they were better off, while 34% said they were worse off, with 37% saying they were in the same position.

Among voters listed as independents “or something else” (such as a third party), 14% said they were better off, 32% said they were worse off, and 55% said they remained the same. Nearly half of Democrats said they were worse off, with 9% saying things were better and 43% saying they were the same.

“Things definitely got bad under Trump. He’s heading us toward dictatorship,” said Malinda Brodt, 65, Democrat who lives in Saylorsburg in Monroe County, which had the biggest shift to Trump in the state in 2024.

Several Trump voters who were interviewed heaped praise on the president for lowering prices — despite mixed results —and a few quoted Trump’s speech in Mt. Pocono that referred to affordability as a hoax.

“He’s gotten down the cost of living, that’s for sure,” said Carol Solt, 80, retired from working in a bait and tackle shop in Lehighton. “He keeps his promises.”

While gas and egg prices have decreased in the last year, the cost of food overall rose 3.1% last month compared to December 2024. Increased prices for beef (1%), coffee (1.9%), and fruits and vegetables (0.5%) led the way, according to Consumer Price Index data released earlier this month.

Ultimately, Kird, the Lehighton voter, concluded before she entered her Giant supermarket that the good times the president assured Americans they’d see have yet to materialize.

“Life is just more expensive under Trump,” she said.