On Biden Street in Scranton, voters are fed up with native son Joe

SCRANTON, Pa. — President Biden has long touted his roots in this former coal-mining town, where he was born and lived for the first decade of his life.

But a little more than a year before voters will determine whether the 80-year-old commander-in-chief will receive a second four-year term of office, denizens of Scranton’s Biden Street don’t feel so proud of their most famous native son.

The Post spoke to more than a dozen people on the thoroughfare formerly known as Spruce Street, whose name was changed by the Scranton City Council in 2021 to honor the 46th president.

Several Scrantonites called the change “stupid” and a “waste of money,” with others suggesting it was made too soon.

“Do you think they’re going to change Biden Street back if he gets indicted?” asked one 80-year-old small business owner. “You want to name something after someone? Wait till they’re dead.”

The same business owner argued Biden’s mental capabilities are “gone,” echoing the 63% who told a Washington Post-ABC News poll in May that they don’t think Biden is mentally sharp enough to run the US effectively.

Many businesses and locals still refer to “Spruce Street” and have not changed their addresses or letterheads to reflect the city council’s decision. That reluctance doesn’t always pay off, given the confusion of outsiders and the existence of another Spruce Street nearby. (There’s also an honorary Joe Biden Way outside the president’s childhood home. )

“Unfortunately, I had to start changing everything over, even though I don’t want to,” said another business owner who, like most people interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity in order to speak freely. “To me, he’s not from Scranton. He was born here. He’s from Delaware.”

“They could have made a street and named it. They didn’t have to take probably the most prestigious street in downtown Scranton and change it,” the same business owner said, adding that he has lost business thanks to would-be customers refusing to shop on Biden Street.

“I don’t think he did a great job,” the person added of the president. “The economy is not looking too good right now and I think his age does have an effect on how he can run the country.”

Shane Fabiani, a 33-year-old Scranton resident, also said the street was renamed “too soon” and agreed that Biden is too old to be returned to the White House.

“There should be some type of regulation about age,” he said. “We should have waited till we really saw what Joe Biden was capable of doing as president before we went around slapping his name on road signs.”

A “not very political” college student working at one of the small businesses on the street offered a different perspective, saying: “I think its really cool that we can say there’s a president from Scranton.”

Any town “that has an elected official, like the president, should be proud, no matter what your beliefs are,” the student said.

In 2020, Biden won Lackawanna County, which includes Scranton, by eight percentage points over Republican Donald Trump.

However, polling data released last year showed the president’s local popularity had dipped from 60% in July 2020 to 47% in June of 2022.

Biden beat Trump in the Keystone State by 1.2 percentage points in 2020, and Pennsylvania will likely hold the key to him winning a second term next year.