Amid a bipartisan fury, including lawsuits from state attorneys general and multiple congressional investigations and calls for his resignation, Mr. DeJoy said he would delay the overtime cuts and other
David Partenheimer, a Postal Service spokesman, said the agency had “experienced some temporary service disruptions in a few locations” because of the pandemic, but said “things are slowly getting back to normal.” Union members, however, said that sorting facilities were still overflowing and that the situation was chaotic.
A recent survey of voters in three rural, Republican districts in the 2020 battleground of Pennsylvania found that in this polarized election season, some voters’ views of the post office were splitting along party lines.
The survey by the Niskanen Center, a moderate think tank, found that Republicans were far less concerned than Democrats about the current turmoil, and said they were also less likely to vote by mail. Twice as many Democrats said they were “very dependent” on the post office.
But the same survey found some risk in attacking what has been among the best-loved government agencies. Rural Democrats and Republicans in the survey were leery of privatizing the Postal Service, an aim of Mr. Trump’s conservative allies, or cutting its budget. Mr. Trump opposes a Democratic effort to provide the post office with $25 billion in emergency aid.
Amid the uproar, some rural residents worried that the damage to their livelihoods and the credibility of the Postal Service had already been done. They wondered whether they could still trust the mail to handle their packages, animals and ballots.
“I’ve always counted on the post office,” said Carrie Sparrevohn, 64, who raises merino sheep and sells wool and yarn from her ranch outside Auburn, Calif. “Now, I don’t know if I should be mailing anything.”
