'I want the Norman Rockwell America back': In Delaware, the land of Biden, evidence of strong Trump support

From Delaware — home state of former Vice President and Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden — north to New Jersey and the suburbs of New York and on to Vermont and New England, Democrats can count on heavy support in the 2020 election. And yet, as veteran USA TODAY NETWORK columnist Mike Kelly and visual journalist Chris Pedota found, resilient pockets of Trump supporters persist amid this Democratic landscape. This is the first installment in a five-part series,"Red Islands in the Blue Sea.”

MAGNOLIA, Delaware — If President Donald Trump is looking for allies to help him beat an impeachment effort, he should come to the flatlands of America's second-smallest state and the home of the candidate who may be challenging him in next fall's election, Joe Biden.

Beyond the highway that runs by “God’s Thrift Shop,” beyond the steel bleachers of a NASCAR raceway, beyond a bar that advertises “cold beer and hot women” and beyond a strip mall that is home to a nail salon, a martial arts studio and a liquor store, Trump can find Dietmar Panzig.

Panzig, 75, a retired mortgage banker and son of a World War II German army captain, rarely leaves his house in a retirement community on a former peach farm without a T-shirt and baseball cap that proclaim his unabashed loyalty to Trump.

At home, he routinely raises a flag promoting Trump’s reelection even when neighbors, he says, call him a "disgrace."

Not surprisingly, Panzig, who moved to Delaware in 2008 from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, to save on property taxes, thinks little of efforts to impeach Trump.

“They’ve been talking about impeachment since 2016,” said Panzig, who also lived in Manville, New Jersey, about 30 miles west of Staten Island, where he served on the Borough Council. “They don’t want him in there for any reason at all.”

“They,” said Panzig, not trying to hold back his disdain, are Democrats. And Delaware, with its 967,000 residents, is often viewed, for good reason, as a Democratic bastion.

It is, after all, the longtime political power base of Biden, who has been a dominant figure in Delaware politics for nearly half a century. Indeed, many Democrats and Republicans here agree that Biden, who represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate for four decades before serving as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years, is beloved in even the most conservative hamlets of the state.

What's more, every statewide officeholder — from the governor to the attorney general, the insurance commissioner, Delaware's two U.S. senators and its single member of the House of Representatives — is a Democrat.

In presidential voting, Delaware has sided with Democratic candidates for nearly 30 years — and especially in 2016, when Hillary Clinton scored an 11-point victory over Trump.

But often overlooked are Delaware’s hardy Republicans. Like Panzig, a former Marine with thick forearms and a barrel chest who served in Vietnam and now sports a bushy white beard, they are a minority. But they are far from quiet.

How Delaware voted in 2016

Two of Delaware’s three counties supported Trump in 2016. Clinton won Delaware’s three electoral votes by scoring a 30-point victory in New Castle County, where nearly 60 percent of the state’s residents reside.

In Kent County, with its growing population of retirees and military veterans who live near Dover Air Force Base, Trump secured a five-point victory. In rural Sussex County, home to sprawling farms, poultry slaughterhouses and Delaware's conservative base, Trump won by nearly 22 points.

Now, with the 2020 election approaching and with Trump facing impeachment — in part, over allegations he held up military aid to pressure Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky to investigate a Ukrainian gas firm that employed Biden's son, Hunter — Delaware Republicans like Panzig are making a fresh effort to rally behind the president.

Panzig feels that he has little in common with many of the Democratic voters — and strident Trump critics — only a short drive away in the nexus of Biden's power base in New Castle County.

"I want the Norman Rockwell America back," said Panzig, who was born in the final months of World War II in a section of Poland that was German East Prussia. He immigrated with his parents to America in 1951.

"I think Donald Trump can do that, financially, socially and religiously."

MAP BELOW: 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Click on a district to see the voting breakdown.

Managing support — and shaming

On a recent evening, when bulbous, gray-black storm clouds blew across Delaware's farms from the Atlantic and let loose a 15-minute torrent of pelting rain, Panzig, wearing a red “Keep America Great” Trump baseball cap, joined nearly 90 Republicans in a back room at Grotto Pizza on a highway named after the state's onetime chemical giant: DuPont.

The group’s goals that night were simple — raise enough money to pay the rent on the Kent County Republican headquarters, a one-story bungalow just a few miles away on South DuPont Highway, and encourage more Republicans to run against Democrats in upcoming state legislative races.

Paying the rent was easy. Hank McCann, a former two-star general in the Delaware National Guard and now chairman of the Kent County Republicans, already had half the $800 monthly rent from an anonymous donor. After he passed a basket around the room, he had $570 more.

Convincing Republicans to run for office was another story.

“Candidates. I need candidates,” McCann exhorted the group.

Standing against the back wall, Terry Dunn, a nurse, smiled and clapped.

Dunn said she grew up in a family of Democrats. But she soon tired of their refusal to support a crackdown on illegal immigration and their promises of free health care — what many Delaware Republicans disdainfully refer to as "socialism."

“I’m a super Trump fan,” Dunn said. “He’s bringing in business. He’s fighting for our country. He’s not apologizing for our country like Obama did.”

But as McCann gave a pep talk in one end of the room, Dunn stood in the back, speaking in hushed tones of being afraid of reprisals for being a Trump supporter in a Democratic state.

“I would fear putting a Trump flag outside my house,” she said.

Pointing to a man sitting at a table who wore a red “Make America Great Again” Trump hat and a red “Trump in 2020” football jersey, Dunn added: “You have to fear walking around with that."

The man in the football jersey, John Gregg, 67, a retired postal clerk, has no such fears — certainly not the kind that would cause him to leave his Trump hat and jersey in the closet.

“We need a strong leader like Donald Trump,” Gregg said. “He stands up for what he believes in.”

From his early childhood in the Bergen County, New Jersey, suburb of Ridgewood, Gregg discovered that politics was hardly a genteel sport.

Gregg’s father, Charles, a liberal Democrat and vocal critic of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, was trounced by 25 percentage points in the 1968 congressional elections when he challenged then-incumbent Republican Rep. William Widnall for a House seat.

In John Gregg’s home, just outside of Dover, he still keeps a framed pamphlet with his father’s progressive platform on a wall of his den. In an adjoining room, framed photos of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, flank a crucifix above Gregg’s bed.

Gregg, who voted for George McGovern in 1972 and later worked as a volunteer for Bill Clinton's campaigns in the 1990s, left his Democratic roots for Trump in 2016. Now, as Trump battles an impeachment inquiry, Gregg feels enduring loyalty to the president.

“I don’t think there is anything there to have him impeached,” Gregg said from his den a few weeks after the Republican meeting. “I believed in Trump. Every time he spoke about the issues, he was strong. He wanted to make America great again.”

Resolute in support for the president

Such firm support for the embattled Trump seems almost strange when compared with the daily criticism of the president on cable news and from Democrats. But it’s not odd among Trump supporters — even in decidedly Democratic Delaware.

As Congress moves forward with a formal impeachment inquiry, a variety of polls show Americans are still deeply divided on whether Trump should be removed from office.

A Washington Post/ABC poll released Nov. 1 found that 49 percent of Americans favored Trump's impeachment and removal from office while 47 percent opposed such a drastic move. The same poll found that 82 percent of Democrats wanted Trump ousted, but 82 percent of Republicans wanted him to stay put.

“I think impeachment is atrocious,” said David Anderson, 50, a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force reserve and a Dover councilman. “The Democrats are so desperate to get President Trump that they are undermining not only the presidency, but basic rules of evidence.”

Anderson, who is black, considers himself at the forefront of what he believes to be a surge in support for Trump among African Americans.

The reason for what Anderson says will be an increase in black voters for Trump is simple: He insists that African Americans are doing better economically, even though statistics offer a mixed portrait.

African American unemployment has dropped to around 6 percent, down from nearly 17 percent in 2010 at the peak of the economic recession. The poverty rate has also fallen. But the U.S. Census Bureau reports that median income for African Americans, after gains in 2015 and 2016, experienced a slight drop in 2017, the last year figures were available.

Nonetheless, Anderson feels that more black voters will side with Trump in 2020. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he got 20 percent of the African American vote nationwide,” Anderson said.

A recently released Hill-HarrisX poll found that 85 percent of African Americans would support any Democrat over Trump — with a large number siding with Biden.

Anderson, who served in the Delaware National Guard with Biden’s son, Beau, who died of cancer in 2015, says it’s not difficult to understand why the former vice president is still popular among African Americans and other traditional Democrats.

The key to Biden’s political success, Anderson says, can be found in Delaware’s unique brand of politics that forces Democrats to gently support some progressive issues while also tilting to more moderate view on others.

“He’s a wonderful guy,” Anderson said of Biden. “Personally I like him. Ideologically I disagree with him.”

Lee Murphy, a retired Amtrak engineer and conductor, considers Joe Biden to be a friend. Murphy came to know Biden when the former senator rode Amtrak trains regularly from his home in Wilmington to Washington.

But Murphy, 68, a Republican, is now running for Congress himself.

"I’ve known Joe for 35 years," Murphy said of Biden. "I call him a friend, but, politically, I could never vote for him."

The 'Delaware way'

That mix of personal and political is what some experts say is part of the “Delaware Way," especially in trying to appeal to progressive voters in northern Delaware communities around Wilmington while also drawing in moderates and conservatives in the southern portions of the state.

“Things are handled in an almost Southern gentlemanly way,” said Nancy Karibjanian, a former TV and radio journalist who now runs the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication.

“It’s always been a state where party lines get really blurred when they like the politician,” Karibjanian said. “That would be how Joe Biden was elected so many times.”

“It’s a small world in Delaware politically,” said M. Jane Brady, a former judge and attorney general who now serves as state Republican chairwoman.

Brady challenged Biden in the 1990 Senate race — and lost — in a hard-fought campaign. But four years later, when Brady was elected state attorney general, Biden invited her to lunch, in part to smooth over their differences. And in 2002, she said, Biden made a point of supporting Brady to become a state judge.

Biden seemed to have other reasons for encouraging the increasingly popular Brady to leave her attorney general position to become a judge. Biden’s son, Beau, wanted to run for attorney general.

“That’s Delaware,” said Brady. “That’s how politics used to be.”

Whether that style will change in the age of Trump — and among Trump supporters in Delaware — remains to be seen. Robin Hayes, 53, a nutrition counselor who is running for a House seat in the state Legislature, finds that Delaware mirrors the rest of the nation in how voters feel about Trump.

“It’s city folk versus country folk,” Hayes said.

The urbane, progressive “city folk,” she explains, find Trump uncouth, embarrassing and corrupt. But “country folk,” whom Hayes considers more grounded in conservative values, find Trump to be a breath of political fresh air.

“What I find fascinating about Trump is you kind of know where he stands,” Hayes said. “Maybe we’re not always comfortable with how he goes about communicating. He’s kind of like a mean dog with a bone. When you have the problems this country has, that’s what you need.”

Rob Arlett, a former U.S. Navy officer who ran Trump’s campaign in Delaware in 2016, said he is “not overly concerned with Trump’s personality” and the controversies from the president’s Twitter messages and other off-the-cuff statements.

“You may not like his personality, but let’s focus on his policy,” Arlett said, citing Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigration and the improving economy. “That’s where we make headway.”

The question now, as Arlett and other Republicans concede, is how he will weather the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry.

On a recent morning at his office at the Kent County Republican headquarters, Hank McCann settled into his desk, on which a small bust of Abraham Lincoln sat next to a photograph of Trump.

The news of that morning predicted that Trump would likely be impeached by the Democratically controlled House of Representatives but probably acquitted and kept in office by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate.

McCann chuckled as he thought about the prospect of impeaching Trump. He handed a treat to Lucy, a yellow Labrador retriever who sat by his feet, then reached for the photo of Trump.

“If they do impeach him,” he said, “it’ll be the shortest trial in history.”

Mike Kelly is a columnist for the USA TODAY NETWORK. For more of Kelly's work, please consider subscribing to DelawareOnline and the USA TODAY NETWORK.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Election 2020: Donald Trump supporters in the land of Joe Biden