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Bob Smith, a Donald Trump supporter, enjoyed a meal during a visit to the Avenue Diner in Wyoming, Pa. For the first time in a lot of years, people have hope that things are going to turn around and things are going to get better, he said.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. To understand the challenge facing Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats as they chart a path out of their Trump nightmare, you cant do much better than to spend a few minutes with the amiable fellow in a diner booth in blue-collar Pennsylvania, as he tucks into a plate of eggs-over-easy and sausage and ponders Donald Trump.

John Randazzo is a registered Democrat who twice voted for Barack Obama, whose 2008 visit to the Avenue Diner near Wilkes-Barre is memorialized with a plaque and a special red stool at the counter. In 2016, Randazzo was among Rust Belt defectors who helped put Trump in the White House the sort of voter who prompted the president to boast last month that he was giving the GOP a rebirth as the party ... of the American worker.

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I honestly feel that hes thinking like the average American right now, what he wants to get done, said Randazzo, 70, a retired hydraulics company manager who has watched the quality of life here slip as the decades passed. Im on board. I know hes trying hard.

He doesnt think much of the Democrats clamoring to win voters like him back.

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Asked about Warren, Randazzo suggested that the Massachusetts senator, who is arguably the Democrats highest-profile advocate for the working class, is out of touch and lumped her in the same category as the entrenched House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi.

Senator Warren took to Twitter to blast President Trumps decision to fire federal prosecutor Preet Bharara after he refused to resign.

Her and Pelosi, theyll never get my vote the way theyre acting, said Randazzo. They are completely the opposite of what Donald Trump stands for. He says one thing, they disagree and its the other thing, and its ridiculous.

Many Democrats believe Warren, who has emerged as a leader of Trump opposition, is their best emissary to win back 2016s Trump Democrats and that she may even be the one to take on Trump in 2020. There is certainly some evidence to support that notion in the Rust Belt.

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Love her. Love her. Love. Her, said Cindy Lefko, 57, branch manager at a bank in downtown Wilkes-Barre, who has lived in the area all her life and thinks the Massachusetts senator would absolutely help Democrats here. She stands for everything that I think the Democratic Party should stand for.

The political narrative about Warren is paradoxical: Republicans see her as a liberal albatross they can tie around the neck of the entire Democratic Party. The Senate GOP is pumping out ads targeting Democrats up for reelection in states Trump won by saying theyre in lockstep with the liberal Warren, not the hard-working people of their states, as National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Katie Martin put it.

Trump himself mocking Warrens claims of partial Native American ancestry reportedly taunted red-state Democrats visiting the White House that Pocahontas is now the face of your party.

Sean McKeag for the Boston Globe

Said John Randazzo, a registered Democrat: [Elizabeth Warren] and [Nancy] Pelosi, theyll never get my vote the way theyre acting. They are completely the opposite of what Donald Trump stands for.

The tug-of-war over Warren underscores the dueling halves of her resume. She hails from deep-blue Massachusetts and worked in the loftiest of all ivory towers, Harvard Law School, before she ran for the Senate.

But she grew up in conservative Oklahoma in a family that struggled financially after her father had a heart attack, an upbringing she credits with inspiring her career-long focus on what she calls leveling the playing field for middle-class families.

Theres a third facet to the Warren picture, one that presents an opportunity and a risk. Polls show that roughly a third of voters dont really even know who she is, meaning there is room to grow the numbers of her admirers but also room for her critics to build on their negative portrait.

Im not familiar with the name, said Maureen Snyder, a nurse who voted for Hillary Clinton, as she picked up her lunch in a downtown Wilkes-Barre deli. More than a dozen interviews found few who had much to say about Warren.

A March 7 Suffolk University/USA Today poll showed Warren was viewed favorably by 34 percent of respondents; an equal number viewed her unfavorably. Thirty-two percent said they either hadnt heard of her or didnt know enough to say. By contrast, only 8 percent of people in the poll said they didnt know how they felt about Trump. Forty-seven percent had a negative view of him.

For Warren to help Democrats wrest back control of government from the GOP, many believe they will need to figure out how to win back voters like Randazzo, who lives in Luzerne County, which straddles a long stretch of the Susquehanna River. Obama won this county by five points in 2012 and nine points in 2008. This past November, Trump crushed Clinton here by 20 points.

Warren thinks that Trump is hoodwinking everyday Americans and that his first months in the White House have proven it.

Talk is cheap, said Warren, bristling at Trumps claim on working-class voters during an interview. She pointed to Trumps Cabinet nominations such as Jeff Sessions for attorney general, who is currently embroiled in a controversy over whether he lied in his confirmation hearings about contact with Russian officials; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a former Wall Street banker; and fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder, who withdrew his nomination for secretary of labor after sustained criticism about his poor treatment of workers, among other issues.

These people, in her opinion, represent corporate interests, not average citizens. Trumps actions are what matters, not the words, she said.

Warren continues to be Trumps chief Twitter attacker, though he hasnt been returning fire as he did during the campaign. Shes been at the forefront of opposition to Trumps most controversial nominees. Her criticism of Sessions record of civil rights earned her a high-profile moment in the national spotlight after GOP leaders formally silenced her for breaking Senate rules.

Not all Democrats believe Warren can appeal to working-class voters outside of true-blue coastal bastions and among urban and campus elites. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, said Warrens words on their own would resonate with Trump Democrats, but she herself is seen as too liberal and too associated with the type of identity politics that turns off white, working-class voters.

Her message is a good one, theres no question about it, shes very good at attacking and stripping back the hypocrisy, he said. Im not sure shes the best messenger for that type of voter.

Warren resonates particularly well with female working-class voters, a subset that should be a priority for Democrats to win back, said Celinda Lake, an influential Democratic pollster. Warren ticks other items off Democrats must-do list, too: She energizes the base, and she has an unparalleled ability to explain the intricacies of the economy and how it all relates to real peoples lives, Lake said, arguing that Democrats would be smart to make Warren a prominent part of their messaging strategy.

She will be, I think, one of the point people on so many of the debates that are going to come up, she said.

Plenty of Democrats, both in Washington and out in middle America, see her as a populist gladiator, not a generic Massachusetts liberal. Warren has been an outspoken critic on trade deals, an issue that helped Trump, several local Democratic leaders noted in interviews.

Shes a warrior, said David Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party in a struggling swath of Ohios Rust Belt, where scores of once-proud Democrats cast ballots for Trump. They did so, Betras said, because he was a disrupter and he was antiestablishment. Elizabeth Warren has been a disrupter her whole life.

But so far on the industrial banks of the Susquehanna, Trump is retaining his legions of fans.

Trump is trying hard, was a refrain uttered again and again by his supporters here, including Bob Smith, a 64-year-old roofing contractor. He is in five to 10 homes a day for his work, and in those visits the Republican said hes detected a new level of optimism even in what he describes as a depressed area.

For the first time in a lot of years, people have hope that things are going to turn around and things are going to get better, said Smith.

Do I believe that hes going to be able to get everything done? No, but at least hes in the right direction, said Gary Polakoski, a retired foreman with the state transportation department. A registered Republican, Polakoski is a lifelong union member and considers himself a middle-of-the-road voter who likes that Trump is not a real Republican. He mimed holding his nose when describing his vote for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in 2012.

Polakoski praised Trumps plans to invest in infrastructure and his promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. The president, he notes, is getting a lot of push-back from the establishment on both sides, the globalists who think the world is better by making things overseas, because they make more money.

If he does a quarter of what he sets off to do, Polakoski started.

It will be good, finished his friend Albert Mrackoski, 75, who also voted for Trump.

Even some who voted for Clinton said they wanted to see what Trump could get done. Hes our elected president, said Snyder, the nurse. Its time to settle down and work rationally and professionally. Unless he does something so wrong that he gets impeached, make the best of what we have.

Sean McKeag for the Boston Globe

Said Hillary Clinton supporter Maureen Snyder of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in reference to Elizabeth Warren: Im not familiar with the name.

There are other challenges, for Warren and Democrats more broadly, in appealing to working class voters.

Some Democrats argue that Trumps appeal to white working class voters is rooted in more than his claim to offer hope to the discouraged blue-collar ranks. They say his success cannot be separated from the xenophobia and racism they say is threaded throughout his words and policies.

Mary Christopher is hoping Warren runs for president, but she is alert to the racial undercurrents that help drive some of Trumps support.

Thats my lady! Shes got the oompf and shes got the power. When she talks, everybody listens, exclaimed the 76-year-old African-American during her shift in the kitchen of a local senior center in Wilkes-Barre. She needs to run. She has a strong voice. She makes you know that she is for you.

Still, Christopher doesnt think Warren would do well against Trump in this area. She offered a blunt summary for why she thinks Trump did so well: This area is very racist.

See more here:
Could Elizabeth Warren win back 'Trump Democrats' in 2020? - The Boston Globe