President Trump will visit the sharply divided battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday as he encourages a rebellion by local Republican officials against Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s stay-at-home coronavirus orders.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s trip to the state where he trails presumptive Democratic nominee Joseph R. Biden is intended to highlight the administration\u2019s efforts providing N-95 masks and surgical gowns, at an Owens and Minor Inc. distribution center in Lehigh County.<\/p>\n

But the business is also located in the governor\u2019s \u201cred zone,\u201d part of the state that won\u2019t be allowed to reopen for non-essential business until June 4. And Mr. Trump is criticizing such long delays in getting back to business.<\/p>\n

During a White House meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Trump praised the Democratic Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado and Republican Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota for swiftly and smoothly reopening their states.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re opening up. You\u2019re both doing an excellent job,\u201d the president said.
<\/br>The president also said reopening schools in the fall must be part of a state\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the governors\u2019 choice, but the state is not open if the schools are not open.\u201d<\/p>\n

With more than 1.7 million Pennsylvanians \u2014 26% of the workforce \u2014 thrown out of their jobs in the past two months, local officials and some business owners in the state\u2019s 30-county red zone are vowing to defy Mr. Wolf\u2019s orders. District attorneys in Republican-majority Berks and Lebanon counties said this week that they won\u2019t enforce the governor\u2019s directive to stay closed.<\/p>\n

The governor responded by threatening to withhold coronavirus aid from counties that don\u2019t comply, saying the defiant county officials were \u201coperating illegally\u201d and \u201cjeopardizing the lives of citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all fighting this war together,\u201d Mr. Wolf said on Wednesday. \u201cWe can\u2019t run up the white flag. We have got to fight this to the end and make sure that we\u2019re going everything we can to keep people safe. I don\u2019t think that the Commonwealth has been unreasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Sen. Scott Martin, a Republican from Lancaster County, questioned whether the governor has the authority to withhold federal aid to local communities. He said Mr. Wolf has imposed \u201cone of the most Draconian lockdowns of all the states.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the only state that didn\u2019t allow real estate to occur,\u201d Mr. Martin said on \u201cFox & Friends\u201d on Wednesday. \u201cWe were shutting down mom and pop businesses. Plus, he created an arbitrary waiver process where he gave about 6,100 of hand-chosen businesses across many industries the ability to continue to operate while shutting down the vast majority of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor rejected a subpoena last week by Republican legislators for records of the administration\u2019s waiver process. He released a list of the businesses that were allowed to stay open, but not the criteria for making the decisions.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wolf on Wednesday noted that 24 of the state\u2019s 67 counties eased some restrictions last week, and another 13 counties in western Pennsylvania will move to the \u201cyellow\u201d phase of reopening Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve done it the right way,\u201d Mr. Wolf said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump, who is campaigning hard to win the state again, has joined in a public fight with the governor. The president said Monday that Pennsylvanians \u201cwant their freedom now, and they are fully aware of what that entails.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democrats are moving slowly, all over the USA, for political purposes. They would wait until November 3rd if it were up to them. Don\u2019t play politics. Be safe, move quickly!\u201d Mr. Trump tweeted.<\/p>\n

At a press conference Monday, Mr. Trump again cited Pennsylvania as a state that is slow-walking its reopening for partisan purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere just seems to be no effort [in] certain blue states to get back into gear,\u201d the president said. \u201cAnd the people aren\u2019t going to stand for it; they want to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor said of Mr. Trump\u2019s visit, \u201cI would urge anybody coming to Pennsylvania to respect our efforts to stay safe, to keep people safe and businesses, wherever he visits. I hope he does everything in his power to keep employees safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, a Democrat who represents Lehigh County, was more hostile about the president\u2019s visit to her district.<\/p>\n

\u201cPictures of the Lehigh Valley will look great in your next ad, but people aren\u2019t getting sick along party lines,\u201d she tweeted at the president. \u201cIt\u2019s not about politics, it\u2019s about policy \u2014 and you\u2019ve failed them. So when you pose with our frontline workers, wear a mask. It\u2019s literally the least you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, the president has yet to wear a mask anywhere near a TV camera. He said he wore one last week, out of view of the media, while touring a mask-manufacturing plant in Arizona.<\/p>\n

Ms. Wild, who became the first Democrat to represent the Lehigh Valley since 1999 when she replaced the retiring Republican Charlie Dent in 2018, also tweeted at the president, \u201cHow can you pose for pictures with the people you\u2019re trying to take health care from? Your ACA lawsuit is ongoing during a pandemic!\u201d<\/p>\n

In a state of 12.8 million, Pennsylvania has had more than 58,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 3,900 deaths. The state ranks 9th in deaths per 100,000 population; infection rates are higher in the more populous southeast and eastern regions, including Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

The battle over reopening comes less than six months before Mr. Trump hopes to capture Pennsylvania in November against Mr. Biden, who is a native of the state, though he represented Delaware in Congress. The president narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2016, becoming the first GOP presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988 to do so.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Biden is leading the president by 6.5 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls. The Lehigh Valley is considered a swing district, along with the suburban counties that ring the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

A Republican operative in Pennsylvania said a victory there by Mr. Trump is \u201ccertainly possible, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s probable at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the coronavirus, and the unemployment rate is higher,\u201d said the operative, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the party\u2019s chances. \u201cI think that just has to hurt the incumbent president. I think overall his prospects are diminishing in Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats in Pennsylvania have made gains in elections in all three years since Mr. Trump took office, including a net gain of three U.S. House seats in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of educated, suburban white women are the ones who are bailing in big numbers,\u201d the Republican said. \u201cThe acceleration of that erosion has increased significantly since Trump became president. The suburban problems got worse. Look at the elections in 2017, \u201818 and \u201819. We saw what happened in the Virginia suburbs [of Washington, D.C.]. We all talked about the Philadelphia suburbs. This has been a real problem since Trump took office, and anybody who\u2019s honest about it will acknowledge it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Trump campaign memo leaked this week said internal polling data from 17 key battleground states shows that Mr. Trump is \u201cclosing the gap against Joe Biden \u2014 from nine points down three weeks ago to tied now at 48 points each.\u201d<\/p>\n

The memo stated that the Trump campaign\u2019s new ads \u201care successfully defining Joe Biden\u2019s weakness on foreign policy and disastrous record with China \u2014 voters are less likely to vote for Biden after seeing our ads.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also said Americans increasingly trust the president over Mr. Biden, by 15 percentage points, to rebuild the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifty-five percent of respondents believe their state is now ready to reopen safely, compared to just two weeks ago when 55 percent said they weren\u2019t,\u201d the campaign memo stated.<\/p>\n