EASTON – They make cement over here in Northampton County, and steel. They also have a habit of picking the winner in presidential elections. In 30 contests going back to 1904, Northampton voters chose the presidential loser just twice, in 2000 (Gore over national winner Bush) and in 1968 (Humphrey over national winner Nixon). They could decide the entire election on these very streets.

They went for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016: 50% to 46% after going Dem all the way back to 1992. Ronald Reagan won it in 1980 and 1984, and George H.W. Bush took it in 1988. Joe Biden nicked Northampton in 2020 over Trump: 50% to 49%. John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon here by a digit in 1960.

Now, both sides square off again in Easton, this rock rambling river town and Northampton County seat, that gave the world Larry Holmes, “The Easton Assassin,” one of the best-ever heavyweight champions, with one of the best jabs. A hardnosed congressional contest fills out the understory of the presidential collision, as U.S. Rep. Susan Wild (D) looks to retain her seat with a victory over state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R).

On the streets, in the strip malls, in the windows of irregularly stacked residential buildings hugging the hills, and on the stripes of lawn running to the sidewalks, Republican Trump versus Democrat Kamala Harris shows up on or around every jagged corner.

“Don’t take away my guns, don’t miseducate my children, and don’t disrespect law enforcement and the

military,” Judy Doll told InsiderNJ, inside The Trump Store on Butler Street. People came and went, energized for their candidate amid the MAGA cowboy hats, “Kamala Sucks” t-shirts, buttons, kazoos, and even a Charley McCarthy likeness of the 45th president seeking to regain the White House.

“I’m from Jersey originally,” said Doll, who comes from a firefighter-military veteran family. She loves it over here, where she finds people generally down-to-earth, kind, strong, and politically scrappy. She anticipates a convincing win for Trump in Northampton, a reflection of the country in miniature.

“I know he doesn’t always say things the way I would maybe, or at least not all the time – but we need someone tough as president,” she said.

Americans got too complacently nice, in her judgement, and need a leader who can go off script and throw loose elbows. The door jangled open. A woman entered seeking to exchange Trump T-shirts. “No problem!” exclaimed Doll, working the counter.

We have lost each other in these times, said the Gen X Trump-backer, who finds real human connectivity with fellow MAGA members, and even critics of the movement, friends who are Democrats who can’t stand convicted felon Trump – facing charges related to impeding the peaceful transfer of American power – but who appreciate the down-to-earth Doll.

The door jangled. Someone else entered looking for celebratory Trump paraphernalia, and Doll happily accommodated.

On the other side of town, on the southern side of the Lehigh River that splits from the Delaware and cuts through Easton, galvanized Democrats worked in the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign at the end of a sloping street also occupied by a dollar store and the assorted shops of a strip mall.

Here, full-time volunteer Camille Villafane – like Doll – generously gave her time to an impromptu interview.

Hailing from San Juan, Puerto Rico, a focused and politically engaged Villafane noted the strong footprint of the Latino community here in this working-class area, over 14% of the population. “I want to encourage more Latinos to vote for Harris-Walz,” she told InsiderNJ amid the constant coming and going of people looking for lawn signs and inquiring about how to give more and do more. “It is a population severely underserved, and Trump would significantly exacerbate issues facing Latinos. We are focused on what Harris-Walz will do to improve economic freedom, economic mobility, access to health and food programs, and upward mobility in general for Latinos. The social issues the other side focuses on occupy a back burner compared to what Latinos consider when they come to the United States to build their American Dream.”

Within the strong, organized support system of Democratic Party outreach backing Harris in Northampton’s various communities, Villafane wants voters to remember that Harris is the daughter of immigrants. A vote for the vice president, she says, pays tribute to those mothers who raised their children here, oftentimes against considerable odds.

The Harris-Walz volunteer said she also wants young people like herself to seriously think about the repercussions of complacently withdrawing from participation in this election cycle to enable “someone not fit to run our country” in Trump. “Politics has a bad reputation perhaps for my generation, the millennial generation, where people are cynical – or can be – in these polarizing times, but we all have a duty to keep it positive and focus on policy and not the noise distracting us from substance,” said the impeccably bilingual Villafane. “We have an obligation to be discerning. My hope is that young people see that Harris is offering us a really good future, where she is focused on human rights and human decency, reproductive rights, and the science of climate change. When I look at Donald Trump, I see someone whose focus is on himself and fattening his personal agenda. Respectfully, he does not care about his voters. He only cares about himself.”

When she looks at Kamala Harris, by contrast, Villafane said, “I see a strong woman, with real sensibility, and an empathetic nature who is not afraid to confront bullies. She’s not a ‘me, me, me’ person. She’s a ‘we’ person. She’s a fearless leader.”

Where the waters of the Delaware meet the Lehigh, the bronze statue of heavyweight Holmes at the end of the day on Friday tells part of the story of the proud and tough and smart people here in the middle of another presidential fight, part of the American political life of battleground Northampton, USA, a republic, said Ben Franklin once, this side of the wider river, “if you can keep it.”