The dateline is my hometown.

As I put it… wow, 9 months ago:

What [Trump’s messaging on hispanics is] targeted at is places like my homeland, the “collar counties” around Philadelphia that determine which way the state swings. Places full of nice, comfortable, suburban whites who vote that identity and those interests, chief among them that they can keep thinking of themselves as nice (and ideally not have to think of themselves as white).

Their concern with immigration and racial policy isn’t with its effects but with its aesthetics - they recoil from deportation and interdiction only insofar as the attached adjectives are “malicious and hateful”, but if Trump can sell the exact same policy as “tough but fair”…

Interesting point that the locals seem to view him as culturally moderate for a Republican because the relevant axis to them is religiosity. Knowing the area I can totally see that - Pennsylvanian Republican primaries are pretty heavy with the type of people that have bumper stickers about the Catholic radio stations they listen to, which was where Santorum came from - and the speculation that this would be just the moderation necessary to stop or reverse the Republicans’ suburban slide is totally plausible. Now enough to take the state who knows.