In a sandwich shop on a quiet street in Scranton, Pennsylvania, there is a smiling cardboard cutout of Joe Biden. Looking two decades younger, the president seems frozen in time when he was a young politician.
Tommy Owens, owner of Hank’s Hoagies, said the Biden cardboard cutout has been on the shop’s door for 15 years, ever since someone brought it in to celebrate Scranton’s most famous son’s elevation to the highest position of political power, as vice president of the United States.
“We thought he was done there!” said Owens, standing behind a glass counter filled with Biden memorabilia, including old campaign posters, pins and a photo of the president buying a hoagie, as Pennsylvanians call their long, stuffed sandwiches.
“It wasn’t his best night,” Owens added, referring to the president’s dismal performance in a nationally televised debate with Republican Donald Trump two weeks ago. “But the Democrats have to come together. I still support him — I love Joe.”
But Hank’s Hoagies, where Biden’s star quality is unquestioned, is a long way from Washington, where in the two weeks since his faltering debate performance, the 81-year-old president has faced calls from lawmakers in his own party to drop out of this year’s White House race in favor of a younger candidate.
Biden moved from his hometown of Scranton to Delaware when he was 10 years old. But the hardscrabble eastern Pennsylvania town holds a special place in the president’s political persona, a name he coined to convey his blue-collar sensibilities despite decades as a U.S. senator.
“Scranton Joe,” as he is sometimes called, will almost certainly have to win the swing state of Pennsylvania — one of the key battlegrounds of the presidential election — if he wants to win the White House in November.
Biden beat Trump in Lackawanna County, which surrounds Scranton, 54% to 45% in 2020.
But beyond Hank’s Hoagies, support for Biden appears to have waned in Scranton, where local pride has turned to quiet concern over his public missteps and mental decline.
“We all love Joe Biden,” said Gina Douaihy, who lives across the street from Biden’s childhood home—a small gray house on Washington Avenue in the city’s leafy northeast corner.
“But he’s 81. I don’t care how healthy he is, I’m 72 and my cognitive brain is not what it used to be,” she said. “What you’ll see in this neighborhood is a group of people who love him but think we need young blood.”
In downtown Scranton, the general sentiment two weeks after the debate is a mix of skepticism that Biden could run for a second term and fear that it could return Trump to the White House.
Stacey Giovannucci, owner of Tusk Tattoos on Biden Street — a street some locals have petitioned to change the name of — said she would likely vote for Biden just to keep Trump out, but was disappointed by the choice.
“I think I prefer the misty eye to the straight evil,” Giovannucci, who has worked in Scranton his entire life, said of Biden and Trump. “I can’t understand why in this great country there are only two people — what the hell? It’s amazing. It feels like a nightmare.”
At a nearby coffee shop, Roxana Curiel, a 38-year-old language professor at the University of Scranton, agreed that she felt “terrible” having to “choose between Trump and Biden.”
Curiel, who has lived in Scranton for 16 years, wants Democrats to pick a younger candidate. “They have a lot of young people who are more connected to the party,” she said.
Others in Scranton are even more concerned about Biden’s mental health.
“He’s too old,” said Mary Cordisco. “He shouldn’t be running the country,” said her daughter Kate, who said she thought he might be suffering from dementia.
“I think he’s losing his mind,” said Khalil, a 25-year-old part-time worker at the Sheetz gas station chain who declined to give his last name. “He’s going downhill. I watched the debate, he was incoherent. That’s important, he’s the leader of the free world.”
The sentiment on Scranton Street may be heartbreaking for Biden, but it also echoes the sentiment of major Democratic donors, who are now threatening to stop funding the president’s campaign and warning that the party’s campaign funding is “drying up.”
Perhaps even more important is the growing list of Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, 250 miles from Scranton, who have urged Biden to drop out of the race. Their number reached 19 as of Friday night.
In downtown Scranton, Edwin Benitez, a part-time church pastor who owns an ice cream shop called Heavenly Scoops, said Biden’s support is also falling rapidly in the town. There are now more pro-Trump signs than pro-Biden signs around his church on Prospect Avenue.
“He should resign,” said Benitez, who has lived in Scranton since 2006. “If he can’t have a conversation, he shouldn’t be leading the country.”
Back on Washington Avenue, near the Biden family’s old home, Douaihy took a break from gardening to smoke another cigarette on the porch.
She would still vote for Biden, despite his age, Douaihy said. “Absolutely. But I hope they give us an alternative.”
