The city where the president was born is still clearly Joe Biden country \u2013 but there\u2019s an acceptance that he had to drop out<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Central Scranton Expressway, the road which leads into Scranton from the I-81 highway, was renamed in 2021 as the President Joseph R Biden Jr Expressway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The road drops down into the center of Scranton, the Pennsylvania<\/a> city where the president was born, where it meets up with Biden Street \u2013 renamed in the same 2021 city council vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no indication yet that Scranton, a former coal and manufacturing hub home to about 80,000 people, intends to change its name to Bidenton, but the message here is clear: this is Joe Biden<\/a> country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u200b\u200bLet me start off with: we\u2019re very proud of Joe Biden. We love Joe Biden. The fact that he\u2019s a local guy, and all that,\u201d said James Ferguson, 81.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ferguson was sitting with his brother, John Ferguson, 77, on a bench on Biden Street on Thursday afternoon. It was a blow for both when the president, who moved to Delaware from Scranton aged seven but who speaks often of his Scranton upbringing, decided to drop out of the race in mid-July, but the fondness for Biden remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think Joe Biden showed the character that he is. He is a very good man, and he put the country first. It\u2019s not how good he is, or whether he is smart or not. It was perception. The perception was bad for Joe, and he knew it and he dropped out. Good for Joe,\u201d the elder Ferguson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But with Trump leading Biden in the polls and posing an existential threat to the US, there is an acceptance that Biden had to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can\u2019t afford to lose this election, I think. So yeah, we were disappointed. We voted for him, we would vote for him again. But I think this is better for the party, better for the country,\u201d John Ferguson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s a realist. I think he finally was convinced that he couldn\u2019t take the risk. We\u2019ve got to stop Trump from winning. We can\u2019t let Trump get in. That is a terrible man. He\u2019s an insult to the human race, that man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden dropped out on Sunday<\/a>, bringing to an end a painful, weeks-long pressure campaign that began with a dreadful debate performance and saw an ever-increasing number of Democratic politicians call for him to resign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Behind the scenes senior party figures, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, had also made the case to Biden that he couldn\u2019t win, despite the president comfortably \u2013 albeit in the face of very little opposition \u2013 clinching the Democratic primary earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis age was a concern for a lot of voters and he was slipping in the polls. And I was very worried about that. So I mean, I\u2019m thankful of all he\u2019s done, I think he\u2019s done good work, and I think he did the honorable thing that really should be valued,\u201d said Angela Miller, a civil engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI never wanted him to run again. He never said he was going to, do you know what I mean? From the beginning he said he was going to be a transitional president. I felt like he kind of went back on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2020, defeating Trump by 80,000 votes. He comfortably won Lackawanna county, the north-east Pennsylvania district where Scranton is based, but not everyone in the city is an admirer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t really on the ball I don\u2019t think. It was kind of like having the senile grandpa in the White House office,\u201d said Phil Fleming, 61, as he watching his friend unpack a guitar at a bandshell in downtown Scranton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fleming had the opposite geographic journey to Biden. He grew up in Delaware, where Biden moved with his family aged 10, and then moved to the Scranton area later in life. But Fleming has no particular affection for the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI always said Joe would do for the country what he did for Delaware: nothing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden endorsed Kamala Harris<\/a> for president within minutes of pulling out of the race on Sunday. Harris has since all but secured<\/a> the Democratic nomination, and if she wins in November she would become the country\u2019s first woman president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m excited about it. I think it would be awesome to have a female run the country, to see what she could bring and try to unite the country a little bit more,\u201d said Kelly, 34.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kelly, who asked not to use her last name, was walking her dog through the Green Ridge area of Scranton, where Biden\u2019s three-storey childhood home is now marked by a small plaque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a cool thing to say that the President of the United States grew up in your neighborhood, you can\u2019t really say that too often. So it\u2019s a little fun fact that we have here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Few cities can claim to have a president on their books \u2013 Quincy, in Massachusetts, can lay claim to two<\/a>: father and son duo John Adams and John Quincy Adams. For Scranton, Biden may no longer be in the race, but he will remain a presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think he really put all his heart and soul into this country, and I just feel like maybe now it\u2019s time to step out, and let the next generation come in and serve the same way he did,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n