By Reid J. Epstein 

SCRANTON, Pa. -- Few parts of the country are more illustrative of Donald Trump's attempt to redraw the Electoral College map than Pennsylvania, and no part of the state is more important to the Republican's chances than Scranton.

Long a Democratic bastion, this blue-collar town of 76,000 offers a near-perfect fit for Mr. Trump's demographic: It's almost entirely white, economically depressed and angry about illegal immigration.

George H.W. Bush was the last Republican to carry Pennsylvania in a presidential election. And this part of the state has been heavily Democratic for generations. Vice President Joe Biden was born here. Hillary Clinton's father, Hugh Rodham, is buried in the Washburn Street Cemetery in town.

Only once since 2000 has a Republican presidential candidate won more than 37% of the general-election vote in Lackawanna County, which includes Scranton. "It's very, very, very tough for us," said Rob Gleason, the state GOP chairman. "It's got a long history of Irish Catholics who live there, and they are conservative Democrats. They are very slow to change."

Mr. Trump's success here depends on converting registered Democrats like Paula Marcho to his cause. Ms. Marcho, 54 years old, voted for President Barack Obama and receives treatment for her cervical cancer through the Affordable Care Act that the president signed.

Now the unemployed waitress from Scranton said she finds Hillary Clinton untrustworthy and is attracted to Mr. Trump's position on illegal immigration.

"I like the way he speaks," Ms. Marcho said. "I know he has a foul mouth, but the other ones, I think they're phony."

At his rally here Wednesday, Mr. Trump brought along his son, Eric, to tout the family's northeast Pennsylvania bona fides. "I went to boarding school in Pennsylvania," said the younger Mr. Trump, who attended the Hill School in Pottstown, 100 miles south of here.

The Trump campaign has made Pennsylvania a linchpin of its Electoral College strategy. Wednesday's appearance was Mr. Trump's third in the state since he won California and other late primaries on June 7 -- as many general-election campaign stops as his campaign has hosted in any state.

Demographics suggest this part of northeast Pennsylvania is a prime area for Mr. Trump to do better than past GOP nominees. Lackawanna County is 92% white, with a shrinking population that is older than the national average -- a combination that plays to the GOP nominee's strength.

Mr. Trump is popular enough here that local businesses, such as a roofing company with signs around town, are touting their support for him on their own advertisements.

"Donald Trump is resonating with the people here, and that's not only Republicans. It's Democrats, it's union people, it's independents," said Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican, who as mayor of nearby Hazleton in 2006 enacted one of the nation's first laws restricting where illegal immigrants could live and work. The law was later overturned by a federal judge.

There are some early signs Mr. Trump will outperform recent GOP results here and across Pennsylvania. Though there are still more than twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans in Lackawanna County, 3,011 local Democrats have switched their party registration to Republicans this year, compared with 502 Republicans who became Democrats, according to the latest data from the Pennsylvania Department of State. Statewide, 80,674 Democrats have become Republicans in 2016, compared with 28,522 Republicans who became Democrats.

"We love to travel, but we don't because we don't feel safe anymore because of our borders," said Mary Kenney, 62, a lifelong registered Democrat from nearby South Abingdon Township who came to see Mr. Trump Wednesday. "It's not safe out there."

The Scranton area has yet to fully recover from the recession. The regional unemployment rate in May was 6.2%, above prerecession levels and the national average, according Labor Department statistics. The metro area's overall economy was 1.4% smaller in 2014 than it was in 2007, adjusted for inflation, according to Commerce Department data.

It is a place ready-made for the Trump message of a nation in decline, even if there are signs the local economy is gaining strength. Payrolls and wage growth have both picked up in recent years.

"Look at these numbers. Scranton has lost 43% of its manufacturing jobs since Bill Clinton signed Nafta," Mr. Trump told voters here Wednesday. "So I don't think you people would be hard to convince."

Chris Carney, a Democrat who represented Scranton and northeastern Pennsylvania in Congress for two terms before being ousted in the 2010 election, said economic insecurity has left voters here "skittish" and "nervous" -- a recipe that plays into Mr. Trump's law-and-order message.

"People vote on emotion, people vote on factors that sometimes don't necessarily seem intuitive," Mr. Carney said. "Especially in this election, it's going to be really hard to calculate how it's going to come out."

--Ben Leubsdorf contributed to this article.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 27, 2016 18:30 ET (22:30 GMT)