Darrell Ann Murphy is relieved, grateful and newly hopeful Democrats can win Pennsylvania and the White House. But she is also still upset, a little mad even.
“Wow, we’re losing Joe Biden,” said Murphy, 83, a retiree who keeps busy teaching the Chinese tile game Mahjong to fellow seniors. “Joe was us. He was every one of us. He cared so much about the middle class and everyone else of course.”
We revisited Murphy this week at her Easton home, and she assembled the same group for a Mahjong game as she did when we first stopped by five months ago. Then, three of the four women at the table said they believed Biden was up to the job and that criticism of his age was unfair. This time, all four said the 81-year-old president was doing the right thing by stepping away from the campaign.
“Surprise and relief” was how Catherine Long characterized her reaction. Long said she believes it was the president’s decision in the end, but added, “I didn’t like how people were telling him to get out of the game.”
Mary Ann Horvath also used the term relief and “much less anxiety.”
We included these voters in our All Over the Map battleground state project because they are all above the age of 70, members of the country’s most reliable voting demographic and residents of one of its bellwether presidential counties. The project’s goal is to track the 2024 campaign through the eyes and experiences of key voters — and what we heard, then and now, about their takes on the Biden age issue was telling.
The debate was the decisive moment.
“It was sad,” Horvath said.
But all of our Northampton County voters also told us they saw things in the weeks, even months, before the June debate that gave them pause: incomplete thoughts, mixing up names, slower and stiffer movements.
“I know how things can change when you’re older,” Murphy said. “Past 80, things can change on a dime.”
The mood among Democrats here is suddenly very different. Before Biden’s decision, morale was low and losing seemed inevitable. Now, the energy is palpable, even though Democrats here understand Kamala Harris faces a tough challenge in Pennsylvania.
“I don’t think a lot of men will vote for Harris,” said Pamela Aita, the one conservative voter in the Mahjong group. “I just don’t. … I just don’t think a majority of men are ready for a female president.”
Murphy, though, voiced confidence that Harris in 2024 will fare better than Hillary Clinton 2016. Times have changed, she believes. And so have the issues that are front and center.
“Reproductive rights. Come on, women,” Murphy said. “Here we are after Roe v. Wade. Here we are. … I think her age is, is really so important. You know, she’s, she’s at the perfect age. She’s committed, she’s vigorous. And overwhelmingly the women I talked to are, ‘let’s go, let’s go.’’’
Murphy was not alone in our group to suggest Harris would improve her Pennsylvania odds by choosing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate.
“I think he is incredibly smart,” Murphy said. “Very modest, understated guy. … He is focused like a beam when he wants to do something. I think he would be the perfect balance.”
Local civil rights activist Marvin Boyer is a lifelong Easton resident who knows Northampton County well. The reaction to Harris, he said, convinced him she has a chance.
“It also re-energizes this strong constituency of the Democratic Party – meaning Black females,” Boyer said in an interview at an Easton museum where he was instrumental in assembling the Black history exhibit. “There seems to be a great deal of support, a groundswell of support for her candidacy.”
High Black turnout in Easton and Bethlehem is critical. Those two cities are the deep blue parts of this county. It takes just a short drive north or west to find Donald Trump flags dotting the lawns and homes.
“Just the other day I was riding down one of the main streets and the guy drives by with a truck with an American flag and a F-Biden flag flying,” Boyer said. “The anger is something else that is very troubling, and the divisiveness is problematic.”
Boyer is an independent but votes Democratic most of the time. He was loyal to Biden. He is excited about Harris.
“One of the things I felt was lacking with the candidate, the Democratic candidate is being more assertive,” Boyer said. “When you are running against a candidate like Trump, you can’t be milquetoast, you can’t be middle of the road. You have to be aggressive. Because he’s coming after you. And I think she’s up to the challenge in that regard.”
Boyer knows his innate optimism is about to be tested.
“There’s still racism, misogyny in this country in 2024, no question,” he said. “Will we overcome it with this election enough that she can be elected? I hope so.”
We put the same question to Larry Malinconico, a geology professor at Lafayette College: Is America ready to elect a woman of color as its president?
“I hope so,” Malinconico said in an interview in the classroom where we first met him in February. “I’m a little nervous about that. … It’s an extremely big test. It will be incredibly exciting or incredibly disappointing come November.”
The early buzz gives him optimism. Malinconico said his wife contributed to the Democrats as soon as news of Biden’s Harris endorsement broke. Students, too, he believes will rally around Harris. Younger voters were a giant crack in Biden’s coalition.
“We don’t want Donald Trump as president,” Malinconico said. “And there’s an acceptable choice now. When before I think there was real skepticism about the viability of President Biden for another four years.”
On our first visit, Malinconico said he had friends and colleagues who raised questions about Biden’s ability to do the job. Back then, he said he did not share those doubts, but that Biden needed to prove them wrong. But his opinion began to change over the spring, and the debate sealed it.
“I initially thought, let’s be fair here,” Malinconico said. “Someone who is in their early 80s could be perfectly viable as a candidate as president of the United States. But as things were going on, you really have to start to question okay, what’s happening here. And as somebody who has seen, for example, my father go through an eventual decline to the point where I was asked to take over his affairs, I sort of recognize this. The time had come, and you don’t take over the affairs of the president, you have someone else do the job.”
Still, he said he was confident Biden could finish his term now that he didn’t also need to deal with the rigors of a campaign.
Malinconico very much hopes Harris and Trump reach agreement to debate.
“I think that she should be able to push his buttons.”
Pat Levin for months bristled at the Biden age conversation.
She is a few weeks away from turning 95, is sharp as a tack, a vigorous and eager participant in pilates classes she jokes help keep her vertical.
Performance, not age, is Levin’s test. And she sadly came to the conclusion that a president she admires can no longer pass it.
“I love him. I think he has been just wonderful,” Levin said. “But he is definitely impaired in terms of his thinking, in terms of his presentation, in terms of his energy. He’s just not up to it.”
Her advice to Harris is telling – so many voters who were loyal to Biden are now blunt about what was missing.
“She needs to get out there,” Levin said. “Get into those into those swing states, show her enthusiasm and her stamina and her strength and be able to communicate strongly. She’s a very intelligent woman. She’s got a lot of confidence. She’s got a lot of stamina.”
Biden was born in Pennsylvania. He won here in 2020 in part because he performed better than Hillary Clinton among white working-class voters. Democrats here understand Harris has work to do there, or in finding a different winning coalition.
“It doesn’t look too good right now,” Levin said of the Pennsylvania odds. “But I think she can turn it around.”
Levin tells anyone who seeks her advice that sure, inflation and immigration matter, but there is something more fundamental at stake.
“It’s democracy,” she said. “This might be our last free and fair election. If we don’t win it. We cannot afford to lose this election for the American people.”
Levin traces her political activism back to Franklin Roosevelt’s third term – the mid 1940s – as “just a kid, a really young kid.” Now, she is preparing to vote in her 19th presidential election, a record that traces back to just after World War II.
She has seen a lot. But nothing like switching candidates with little more than 100 days left, in a contest where she sees the stakes as so consequential.
“No, I’ve never experienced anything like this,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
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