The first capital of the United States, where the country’s independence was declared and the Constitution was signed, almost 250 years ago, Philadelphia is considered the cradle of American democracy.
Not that it matters much to housewife Jessica Randal, 39, who says she doesn’t know if she will vote in Tuesday’s elections — the midterms, which will choose governor, senator and congressmen, among other positions.
“My father has been a Republican all his life and says that voting was a right and that we had to exercise it. But I don’t see much difference,” says she, who does odd jobs as a cleaning lady to make ends meet for the month when her husband can’t find much work. . “When politicians are elected, they see the same thing. They are preoccupied with other issues and forget what is important for the day to day of the voter.”
The Pennsylvania election has long been considered the most important of these midterms because it can decide whether control of the Senate stays with the Democrats or moves to the Republicans. What bothers voters like Jessica, though, is that real-life issues are rarely discussed.
Pennsylvania is one of the symbols of the so-called rust belt, a region that encompasses part of the Northeast and Midwest of the United States, where deindustrialization during the second half of the last century increased poverty levels and caused urban degradation. Philadelphia alone, for example, has lost 495,000 inhabitants since 1950, about 24% of its population.
The 2008 crisis was another blow, and the city never fully recovered. It now has its own “crackland” in the Kensington neighborhood, with streets taken over for the buying, selling and using of heroin and other opioids in the open — 1,276 people died of overdoses in Philadelphia last year.
Jessica and her husband, Allan, 57, have seen the violence come closer and closer to home. They say they are dissatisfied with the country’s direction and choose the rising cost of living as the main enemy.
“Before I paid $2 [R$ 10] the pound of the hamburger [equivalente a 450 gramas]. Today is $6 [R$ 30]. Before, my energy bill was $80 [R$ 404]. Today it costs over $100 [R$ 505]. Spend more than $1,000 [R$ 5.000] with food for my family a month, and sometimes it’s not enough,” says Allan, who has six children and makes a living renovating and cleaning empty houses before they are sold or rented.
That is why, unlike his wife, he says he will vote in this election, as he did for the first time in his life in 2020, at 55, when he registered to support Donald Trump, defeated by Joe Biden.
Even poor, he blames the economic aid of the Democrat government during the pandemic for the country’s economic situation – even if they started in the Trump administration. “Many people in my neighborhood had never seen so much money and now they don’t want to work anymore. That’s why food is so expensive.”
Polls show that the economy is the top concern among voters in the state. Then comes abortion — the next governor will have the power to veto or pass whatever the local legislature decides, after the Supreme Court rules that termination of pregnancy is not a constitutional right.
“In the end, the local government will be able to do little for the economy. But the local election will decide the direction of the issue of abortion, education and environmental policies in the state, a major producer of natural gas”, explains political scientist Daniel Mallinson, professor from Pennsylvania State University.
For him, the distance from local issues in debates and the focus on national issues, such as the future of democracy, is part of a trend in American politics that has been accentuated since the last elections.
It also weighs the fact that even the local election can have a national impact, says the professor, since the next governor will appoint the secretary of state, who organizes the rules of the 2024 presidential election.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano has not only echoed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, he’s also been targeted by the House committee investigating the Capitol invasion.
This is an uncomfortable topic for Allan, who will again vote for the Republicans. “I am totally against these extremist and violent ideas. I will vote for them, but I just want to live a quiet life.”
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