Trumplandia, Pennsylvania
Updated | Eileen and Richard Sorokas loved Barack Obama. They made calls and even knocked on doors to get him elected president in 2008 and 2012 because they believed he would bring change to their stagnant corner of northeast Pennsylvania. (The couple even named two of their ducks after the president and his veep, though a coyote killed Biden.) But in early November, Eileen and Richard voted for Donald Trump for president, as they and the rest of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, flipped from supporting Obama by 5 points in 2012 to a 20-point victory for the billionaire. Reversals like that throughout Pennsylvania gave the state to the Republicans for the first time in a national election since 1988.
“I have all the confidence in the world he’s going to do a good job because you could tell just [from] how he campaigned,” Eileen says, detailing her deep faith in Trump, even as a scrapbook of souvenirs from when she worked for Obama lies on the table in front of her. “He’s a businessman, and he knows what he’s going to do with the economy. He’s sincere with getting America back to work.”
Blue-collar and working-class voters got credit for Trump’s surprise victory this November, but he flipped a lot of very white-collar voters as well. Eileen’s and Richard’s fathers both worked the local coal mines, but their children have done very well for themselves—they own three homes in Luzerne County and almost 200 acres of land. Richard has an MBA, worked his way up to research and development at Procter & Gamble over 31 years—“I put the roses on Charmin toilet paper,” he says proudly—and the couple is now somewhere between “very comfortable” and “well-off.” Sitting next to his wife on the porch of their home in Hunlock Creek, a rural area 15 miles south of the county seat of Wilkes-Barre, Richard talked about why they went for Trump, and why they might turn on him. He says his support will waver if the businessman doesn’t follow through on his campaign promises, quickly ticking off the issues he’ll be watching: a jump-started economy plus illegal immigration and health care reform. “If he goes in there
