UNIONTOWN, Pennsylvania — Paul is a 60-year-old, white, working-class guy eating chicken and biscuits smothered in gravy at Mark C’s diner on the edge of town.

Paul isn’t very political — he doesn’t have strong views on public policy. “I’m not into this Republican or Democrat thing,” he says. In fact, Paul never voted until he was in his 50s — until 2016. “That was the reason why I even registered to vote, so that I could vote and vote for him.”

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You can probably guess that “him” is President Donald Trump.

I press Paul for what he likes about Trump and what issues matter to him. Protecting Medicare is his first answer. Then he quickly notes that he disagrees with Trump on cutting federal education spending — teachers are already underpaid. The only other political figure he names whom he likes is Colin Powell.

Eventually, Paul says, “I don’t follow politics too much. I don’t get too involved in it.”

Kevin Crossland, a local small businessman at the breakfast counter, also shares his views about Trump.

“He’s a lyin’ c***sucker,” Kevin says with a laugh. “I voted for him twice.” Then Kevin does some counting while eating some fries, shakes his head, and holds up three fingers. “Actually, three times, I guess.”

Here in the Monongahela Valley south of Pittsburgh, this is the political landscape Democrats have to navigate.

Trump helped turn steel country and coal country dramatically red, and some Democrats feel there’s nothing they can do in response.

The realignment has been dramatic. In 2000, Fayette, Washington, and Greene counties, the southwest corner of where the collapse of coal and steel industries have hit the hardest, voted for Democrat Al Gore by nearly 10 points.

John Kerry won the region in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008 basically tied John McCain.

Bobbi, who works in the kitchen at Smitty’s Bar and Grill, was a Republican organizer in those days. She says the patronage and corruption of local Democrats helped her and other activists turn voters to the GOP and bring the vote here just about even.

The real red tidal wave, though, hit in 2016. Trump has gotten more than 60% in these three countries in all three of his races.

Democrats used to win all three counties, powered by steelworkers and coal miners, and now Trump is winning 2:1 and netting 60,000 votes across these counties.

How did this happen? Can Democrats reverse it?

Rich Lattanzi used to be a steelworker and a local Democratic Party chairman. He’s now the mayor of Clairton, Pennsylvania, located in Allegheny County, but it is definitely coal and steel country. U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works is the plant where an explosion killed two workers last month.

“In the last four or five years, it’s almost like the Democrats forgot the people they are representing,” Lattanzi laments. Democratic bigwigs, Lattanzi says, don’t want to be seen with blue-collar white guys like Lattanzi and his former co-workers at the plant. “They’re out there looking for minorities, gays, and lesbians,” to stand onstage with them when they visit the Pittsburgh area.

And he says Democrats blew an opportunity during Nippon Steel’s purchase of U.S. Steel. Former President Joe Biden and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) “had a chance to be heroes” by fighting to ensure that Nippon kept jobs in the area, but they never rose to the occasion.

“The boots on the ground in the mill, they say the Democrats don’t care for them,” Lattanzi concludes.

JoJo Burgess works at Clairton Coke Works, and he’s the Democratic mayor of Washington, Pennsylvania, a small city in Washington County. I ask Burgess what Democrats can do to win back the steelworker.

“I don’t have an answer for that,” Burgess says at the bar of the Texas Roadhouse. “Because Washington County is so red right now, and it’s not an old school Republican Party like you had that you could work with. It’s all these MAGA Republicans. And one thing that I’ve learned about MAGA Republicans: They’re extremely loyal, and you can’t tell them s***.”

“You can’t tell them s***,” might be true. Again, Paul from the diner couldn’t identify a single issue on which he agreed with Trump. Kevin could name only guns, and he had no praise for Trump personally. How do you convert someone who doesn’t have political beliefs beyond “I like that guy?”

Most of the GOP’s gains in the past two decades are from voters such as Paul, who used to tune out of politics but who were pulled to the polls by Trump. While the population of Fayette County has fallen by more than 13% over 20 years, the number of voters has gone up by more than 30%. That’s more than a 40% increase in turnout, twice the statewide 20% increase since 2004.

It’s depressing for Democrats, but it’s also ominous for Republicans. Yes, Fayette, Washington, and Greene counties have become a lot more Republican, but really, they have become much more pro-Trump.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, for instance, won the region by fewer than 10,000 votes in 2022, compared to Trump’s 60,000-vote wins in 2020 and 2024.

The Trump voters I speak to here nod that they would support Vice President JD Vance if he runs for president, but they can’t even name another living Republican politician.

THE DEMOCRATS’ UNDEMOCRATIC HARRIS MISTAKE

Burgess, moments after despairing over the Democrats ever winning back Washington County, expresses some hope. “If Trump isn’t on there, I think it’ll be up for grabs again.” Sure enough, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) basically tied in Washington County in 2022 and could very possibly win it in 2026. Fayette and Greene are out of reach, but after Trump, GOP turnout there could fall dramatically.

Republicans are trying to become the party of the working man, and Democrats are drifting from that identity. The GOP gains in this corner of Pennsylvania in the past 25 years are not going to disappear, but once Trump is gone, we will see how many folks in steel and coal country became Republicans rather than just Trump voters.