US election: Under the skin of Trump country

Donald Trump stunned the political world by storming the primary contests to become the Republican Party's nominee for president. And one county in the key battleground state of Virginia offers some answers as to how he did it - and why so many people want him rather than Hillary Clinton to be the next resident of the White House.

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If the sun is shining down on the verdant hills of Henry County, Virginia, chances are that Janice Merkel can be found on the side of the road somewhere, waving at the traffic from a lawn chair under a giant sign: "TRUMP GEAR".
On a sweltering day in early July, she sits just feet from the traffic hurtling past in front of a motorcycle shop. Truckers blast their horns in approval as they thunder past.
"I've noticed a shift, I'm getting more honks and waves," says the 48-year-old mother of two. "I'm actually disappointed I'm not getting flipped off."
Since she began selling six weeks ago, Merkel has become something of an unofficial pollster for the people who stop to peruse her selection of (unofficial) Trump T-shirts and hats emblazoned with slogans like, "Build That Wall" and "Finally Someone With Balls".

 

Janice Merkel says she gets plenty of love at her roadside Trump gear stand 

"The main viewpoint is they just don't want Hillary," she says. "That is the biggest comment. We just have to get rid of Obama, we have to get rid of the Clintons. And they'll vote for Trump just to get rid of her."
The people of Henry County - hundreds of miles away from the increasingly Democratic-leaning parts of northern Virginia closer to Washington - have long memories. They remember the heyday of the local economy in the 1960s and '70s, when there were so many manufacturing jobs that you could quit one in the morning and have another by after lunch, as the local saying goes.
But then came globalisation, the North American Free Trade Agreement - ratified by potential first husband, former President Bill Clinton - and the textile plants and the furniture factories packed up for Mexico or went belly up. Unemployment hit 20%. When the US was declared officially in a recession in 2008, Henry County residents grumbled that they'd already been in one for 10 years.
Today, some locals would dearly love to stop bemoaning the job losses and the empty factories, which at this point have been shut so long an entire generation has grown up never knowing what it was like when the area was booming. But locals have yet to forgiven the Clintons.
"No way I'd vote for Hillary Clinton," says Andy Turner, a cemetery owner who drops by Merkel's stand to buy two Trump yard signs. "If she was running by herself it just wouldn't happen.">>READ MORE