Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s impromptu trips to fast-food restaurants have gone viral, showcasing his rising popularity with communities that have soured on President Biden.
Mr. Trump’s recent visit to a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta drew millions of views on social media. The Republican Party’s presumptive nominee was swarmed with customers and employees. Among them were young Black men and women seeking autographs and photos. Mr. Trump pumped up the crowd while bantering with the diners and cashiers.
“That’s the lord’s chicken,” Mr. Trump said. He announced that he would buy everyone milkshakes. He grabbed a pen to sign a Make America Great Again hat handed to him by a young Black man, who said the souvenir came from the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where Mr. Trump was nominated the first time.
“You’ve been there since the beginning,” Mr. Trump said approvingly to the man, who replied, “Absolutely.”
Mr. Trump’s series of fast-food pit stops has become a signature part of his third presidential campaign and served as a reminder of his enduring popularity with the working class. It also has helped draw a sharp contrast with Mr. Biden, who has had difficulty generating enthusiasm among his base.
Mr. Trump’s rousing receptions at his unannounced campaign stops are reflected in poll numbers.
He is gaining significant support among racial minorities and young people, who have long been reliable voting blocs for Democrats. He is solidifying his backing among working-class voters of all races and ethnicities, particularly White voters without college degrees.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump comfortably among Black voters but has shed support.
The poll found that 30% of Black men plan to vote for Mr. Trump, up from 12% recorded in an Associated Press poll in 2020. Among Black women, Mr. Trump’s support has jumped from 6% in 2020 to 11%.
Polling shows young voters are also flipping to Mr. Trump. In some surveys, the former president is leading Mr. Biden among voters younger than 30, which is unprecedented for a Republican presidential candidate.
Trump pollster Jim McLaughlin said working-class voters are clamoring for the former president to return to the White House, where he has promised to revive an economy mired by inflation, high interest rates and runaway energy costs under Mr. Biden.
Their enthusiasm is evident when Mr. Trump appears in the lobby of fast-food establishments where they dine or work.
“It’s amazing the reaction he gets from working Americans,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “Biden is destroying their country. They are having trouble making ends meet, and President Trump is truly their way of fighting back. We have never seen anything like this before.”
The Biden campaign team scoffs at the notion that Mr. Trump is winning in the realm of retail politicking or that the viral videos of his visits to fast-food joints equate to broad enthusiasm.
During the short-lived competitive primary, Mr. Trump consistently underperformed with moderates and suburban voters he needs to win in November.
Mr. Biden has been focusing on smaller communities and face-to-face meetings with voters in battleground states while Mr. Trump has remained primarily at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Biden campaign officials said.
In the past two months, Mr. Biden stopped for boba tea in Las Vegas, breakfast burritos in Los Angeles and soul food in Charleston, South Carolina. Among other local visits, he spoke at a brewery in Superior, Wisconsin.
“Since the State of Union, President Biden has been to all eight battleground states — some multiple times — while Donald Trump has been to just three,” campaign spokesman Seth Schuster said. “President Biden is engaging directly with the communities and voters who will decide this election, while Trump is barely leaving Mar-a-Lago.”
Mr. Biden’s campaign staged an event last month in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where he and first lady Jill Biden sat down for a pizza dinner in the home of a local family. In January, Mr. Biden dined on Cook Out, a local fast-food chain, in the home of a family in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The dinner meetings were intimate and quiet. The Biden campaign produced videos of the events and left the press outside. At the pizza dinner, Mr. Biden let his wife do much of the talking. When the president chimed in, he communicated in a near-whisper.
The Biden campaign says the events allow the president to reach out to key voting groups and convey his persona and message in ways that are impossible at rallies and larger campaign events.
For some, Mr. Biden’s smaller venues show an unflattering contrast.
“This little simple thing shows the difference of Joe and Trump, to me,” one member of the CartierFamily, a popular group of vloggers, said in a recent YouTube video.
The four young Black men in the vlog analyzed the video of Mr. Trump’s visit to Chick-fil-A and opined that Mr. Biden would have been out of place at the establishment. He needed the more “chill” environment of the small family dinners to accommodate his elderly demeanor, they said.
Mr. Biden, 81, is less than four years older than Mr. Trump, 77, but has faced far more scrutiny over his age, frail appearance and mental acuity.
“Joe couldn’t have been in there,” one of the CartierFamily vloggers said while watching Mr. Trump hold court at the chicken sandwich establishment. They joked about the prospect of Mr. Biden handing a vanilla milkshake to a customer and instead dropping it on the floor. “He probably would have fell over,” one of the vloggers said.
Mr. Trump, in contrast, appears as comfortable in the lobby of a fast-food restaurant as he is on the campaign rally stage.
He handed out his Make America Great Again hats at a McDonald’s in East Palestine, Ohio, during a visit last year after the Norfolk Southern train derailment. He praised the “beautiful-looking group of people” in the restaurant and ordered food for first responders and for himself and his staff to take back to his private plane. “I know this menu better than you do,” he boasted to the cashiers. “I probably know it better than anybody in here.”
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are heading to bigger venues.
Mr. Biden will hit the campaign trail Tuesday for a three-stop swing through Pennsylvania, a must-win state for the president, where polls show him statistically tied with Mr. Trump. He plans to deliver an address in Scranton to contrast his economic policies with Mr. Trump’s.
In a bid to shore up support among middle-class voters, Mr. Biden will pitch his plan to implement tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, who he believes are not paying their fair share.
Mr. Trump held one of his signature rallies Saturday at the Schnecksville Fire Company fairgrounds in North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania. The venue was in Lehigh County, a critical swing-voting region.
Thousands of people attended the rally.
Lehigh County Republican Committee Chairman Joe Vichot told Lehigh Valley News that younger people who did not vote in the last presidential election said they are now seeking lawn signs for Mr. Trump. “The excitement is probably bigger than 2020,” he said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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