President Donald Trump plans to visit Northeast Pennsylvania next week for the first time since beginning his second term in January, local Republican Party leaders said.
Lackawanna County Republican Party Chairman Dan Naylor said Thursday the White House advance team advised him that Trump would visit the region Tuesday, though he didn’t have specific details of the president’s planned trip. Lee Ann McDermott, chairwoman of the Luzerne County Republican Party, said someone from U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s team contacted her Thursday to let her know Trump is coming to the area Tuesday.
“I just got a call this morning,” McDermott said. “They said it’s possibly in the southern end of the county. They always keep the details quiet until the last minute.”
The Associated Press also reported Thursday that Trump plans to travel to Pennsylvania on Tuesday “to discuss ending the inflation crisis that he says was inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden.” The AP report cites a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and does not include details of where in the state Trump plans to speak.
Trump last visited the region Oct. 9, 2024, when he held a campaign rally at the Riverfront Sports complex in Scranton less than a month before defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. It marked his second visit to the region of 2024, following an Aug. 17 rally at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre Twp.
Trump previously spoke at Mohegan in April 2016, October 2016, August 2018 and September 2022. During his unsuccessful 2020 reelection campaign, Trump participated in a Fox News town hall at the Scranton Cultural Center at the Masonic Temple on March 5, 2020; held an Aug. 20, 2020, rally at Mariotti Building Products in Old Forge; and landed and spoke at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in Pittston Twp. on Nov. 2, 2020.
Trump won Pennsylvania last year and swept other key swing states to win back the presidency he lost to Biden, a Scranton native, in 2020.
The president’s upcoming visit “shows that he is concerned about our region,” Naylor said.
“Him coming puts focus on us and also on what he’s been able to accomplish in the short time that he’s been in office for the second term,” he said.
The visit also comes amid a period of difficult polling for Trump, with a November Gallup poll putting his overall approval rating at just 36%, the lowest of his second term. Trump’s approval rating on the issue of the economy was also 36%, the same poll showed.
The poll was conducted from Nov. 3-25, a period that partially overlapped with the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history. Trump signed a government funding bill Nov. 12, ending the 43-day shutdown.