How Kamala Harris is trying to bleed support from Donald Trump by infiltrating rural Pennsylvania counties

While it is not unheard of to be a Democrat in rural Pennsylvania, it is not the norm. 

But as the campaign season heads into overdrive with 33 days to go before Election Day, Democrats in the deep red areas are growing more confident coming out of the woodwork and voicing their support.

It helps that Democrats running for office are making a play in every corner of the state.

The latest Emerson College poll shows Harris and Donald Trump tied 48 percent to 48 percent with voters in the state.

With Pennsylvania perhaps the most important battleground state in the presidential election and polls showing a razor-thin race, Kamala Harris’ campaign and party officials are not leaving anything to chance.

With their effort, supporters on the ground are growing increasingly hopeful the trend of rural areas in the crucial state growing increasingly red will reverse or at least slow.

‘While we have typically been a Republican stronghold in this county, we do have a higher percentage of Independent voters and Republican voters, and so I think it’s really important to think through the strategy of how they’re here and why they’re here,’ said 44-year-old Natalie Williams from York.

She wants to see candidates really try to sway people ‘who are maybe no longer leaning toward a Trump America.’

‘My gut instinct is that Pennsylvania is going to be blue,’ she added. Even in the deep red county, Williams is not alone.

On a dreary Wednesday afternoon, a line of voters sporting Kamala Harris apparel wound through the fairgrounds in York County, joining like-minded individuals in what it predominantly known as Trump country.

They were there for a rally with Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz who was making his second swing through Central Pennsylvania heading into parts of the state Trump won by double-digits even as the state flipped back to blue in 2020.

Trump won York in the last election with more than 61 percent of the vote, but the Harris campaign has set up shop in the county with one of its fifty coordinated field offices just down the street as the election looms.

Lifelong Republican Hugh Darlington from Elizabethtown has taken notice. He never was active in politics before Trump entered the scene. Now he has attended his second Walz event.

‘I think character is everything, and I don’t think Trump has any,’ he said. ‘I’m a veteran, I’m also a gun owner. I’m also a motorcycle rider. I’m also Catholic.’

‘Trump and Vance are despicable. That’s putting it nicely,’ he added.

His wife Louise was also in attendance. She said the worst thing that has happened over the past eight years is the divisiveness but was grateful to see the Harris team make the effort to engage.

‘They’ve got to go into the breach and meet with these people and talk to them,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to move everyone, but I think it’s going to move a lot of people because some of these areas are not getting the information.’

The Darlingtons believe that if people know Harris and Walz are in the area, they’re going to pay attention.

The vice president has campaigned in some very red parts of the state. She was planning to make the trek to York but had to turn her focus to Hurricane Helene.

But in this bus tour, Walz has been given a unique opportunity. When going into ruby red Trump country, he puts his rural Nebraska upbringing on full display.

‘When you’re from a small town, there’s a game we play. We try and out-small town somebody else,’ Walz told the room of supporters. ‘So I tell them “400” and they’re like “yeah about the same.” And then I say “I had 24 kids in my class.”’

Walz made his York pitch surrounded by hay bales. His walk-up song is John Mellencamp’s ‘Small Town.’ He spoke about agriculture and rising prices.

At this event, he was introduced by a lifelong Republican. A few people in the audience held ‘Republicans for Harris’ signs. 

Bill Troutman, an electrician and former Republican voter from Elizabethtown in nearby Lancaster County, came out to hear what Walz had to say.

Troutman chose not to vote for Trump in 2020. He plans to do the same in 2024 and thinks others could flip.

‘There’s moderates her that are changeable. There definitely is,’ he said with a deep rasp. ‘If you don’t try, you’re not gonna get them. It’s that easy.’

He said he lives in a very Republican neighborhood where having a political conversation sometimes is ‘next to impossible’ but he thinks some are willing to talk more freely than they used to and listen to the ‘Democratic side of things.’

‘I might be getting somewhere with a couple of them,’ he smiled. ‘Some will never change.’

Troutman is also a supporter of Democratic Senator John Fetterman, who is from York and amped up the crowd ahead of Walz’s remarks.

‘Pennsylvania picks the president,’ Fetterman told the room of supporters. He’s not wrong. The path to the White House runs directly through the state. A Democrat has not won the presidency without it since 1948.

‘All of you are willing to do the kind of work and to show up and to make sure that we deliver Pennsylvania,’ Fetterman said.

In heading to Trump country, the Harris campaign is taking a page out of Fetterman’s book. He did not win the county by a long shot in the 2022 midterms, but he showed up across the state. The double-digit gap that year shrunk three points from 2020.

It was part of a boarder strategy to visit every county and peel off some GOP support in the process in rural areas.

Democrats in York are under no illusion of flipping the county in November, but they do sense a shift.

26-year-old Lexi Ganas, who organizes for Democrats, said she can walk into the supermarket with a Harris shirt or hat, and it is perceived differently from how she felt wearing Hillary Clinton gear in 2016.

‘People are more open to having a conversation instead of spewing the hate,’ she said. ‘I feel we’re moving in the right direction.’

Driving through York, Pennsylvanians on both sides are showing their political colors. With the election looming, there are yard signs popping up all. It’s an even looking mix: some read Trump. Others: Harris.