Biden's old backyard now a key Pennsylvania battleground filled with 'purple' votes

While northeastern Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna County has been a Democratic stronghold in state and federal elections, voters on the streets of the old coal mining region say the area runs "purple" and will likely be a nail-bitter of an election.

"It's not as blue as people think. It's more purple underneath because people are afraid to say anything around here because they think that there's going to be retaliation. That's an old thing that goes back generations around here," David Kveragas told Fox News Digital from a pizza shop on the main drag of Scranton as a storm sloshed rain across the Wyoming Valley last week. 

Lackawanna County is home to cities and towns such as Scranton, Carbondale and Throop, mixing cityscapes backdropped by factories of a bygone era, and dotted with suburbs and expansive farms. The county has long voted blue in state and national elections, last throwing its support behind a Republican in 1984 during President Ronald Reagan’s blowout election when he won each state except Washington, D.C., and Minnesota — the home state of Reagan’s competitor that year, Walter Mondale.