Have presidential campaigns visited our area before?
Lyndon B. Johnson campaigns in Ashland.
SHENANDOAH – The candidates for president and vice president have been zig-zagging Pennsylvania — considered a key battleground state — stopping seemingly everywhere but the heart of coal country.
Democratic Candidate Kamala Harris has been in the Keystone State a dozen times, visiting Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre last week and another visit to Philadelphia is planned Tuesday, while Republican candidate Donald Trump has also zig-zagged the state with stops in Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, Johnstown, and the now-infamous rally in Butler County.
He’s expected to visit rural Bucks County this weekend, just outside Doylestown.
Their vice presidential candidates have been busy in the state too, with stops in Erie, Allentown, Lancaster, and more.
Though, no candidate has visited Schuylkill County or the Hazleton area thus far in the campaign. Has any presidential candidate or their running mate stopped here?
The short answer is yes — you might recall the photos of a swarming crowd at Garfield Square in Pottsville when then-Senator John F. Kennedy spoke. But, there have been others, including a vice-presidential stop in Shenandoah.
The first presidential campaign to visit Schuylkill County was in 1860. Stephen Douglas, Democratic candidate for president. He stopped in Pottsville.
Douglas was one of four candidates to receive electoral votes that year and won 29.5% of the popular vote, but carried only one state: Missouri.
It would be a century later when our county would be visited once again, with stops in the north for the first time.
Lyndon B. Johnson, running mate for Kennedy, stopped in Shamokin, Ashland, Frackville, and Saint Clair on his way on Allentown on Oct. 18, 1960.
In Ashland, he spoke for about 15 minutes from aboard a convertible in front of the Marko Town House downtown, then in Frackville, he spoke outside the former State Police barracks.
Later that month came the famous visit to Garfield Square by Kennedy himself.
“Now let me make it very clear that the differences are sharp. I want Mr. Nixon to come here to Pottsville and campaign on his slogan, ‘you’ve never had it so good,'” Kennedy told the crowd at Garfield Square.
The next day, Kennedy gave a very similar speech in Hazleton.
Not quite in response to Kennedy’s words, Richard Nixon campaigned in Garfield Square in 1968.
That same year, his opponent Hubert Humphrey’s running mate, Edmund Muskie, made the only known presidential campaign visit to Shenandoah.
The Evening Herald noted that the U.S. Senator received a “warm welcome” in Shenandoah and was “particularly pleased by the sound of a polka on a distant recording machine.”
He spoke to a crowd in the heart of town on West Centre Street outside the former Hotel Shenandoah.
“A special salute was offered when the local high school band played polkas, but unfortunately had to disband because of rain,” the Herald noted.
He also campaigned in Mahanoy City and Frackville.
While the Pottsville Republican lamented in 2000 that “gone are the days when presidential candidates would come to towns, such as Pottsville, to speak to small crowds of voters,” they weren’t quite done.
Vice President Dick Cheney came to Pottsville, Hazleton, and Bloomsburg in August 2004 as part of George W. Bush’s re-election campaign.
In Hazleton, Cheney spoke about national security, taxes, and healthcare.
“I hear it’s been a while since you had a Vice President come through Pottsville. It’s all right, those other Vice Presidents didn’t know what they were missing out on,” Cheney told a crowd at Martz Hall in Pottsville on August 25, 2004.This is a beautiful, proud, hardworking part of America. You’re in the heart of coal country, and the way things are today, Pottsville is also the heart of Bush-Cheney country.”
Martz Hall once again hosted a campaign rally in 2008 when Republican candidate John McCain visited, where he primarily focused on the economy.
Since that visit, while candidates have treated Pennsylvania as a must-win area, they haven’t come back to Schuylkill County or to Hazleton.
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