Erie County: The Linchpin to a Democratic Presidency
Combating Trump's pixie dust in Pennsylvania with focus on issues, energy, early voting
Sam Talarico knew before he saw the polls. The Erie County Democratic Party chair is on the pulse of our swing county in the nation's swingiest state. With Joe Biden as the nominee, Talarico witnessed a trickle of volunteers. Once Kamala Harris topped the ticket, a flood commenced. Talarico told me "People are calling and asking, 'What can I do?' Canvassing and phone banking are way up. And interest is way up. There was a lot of energy that was just released once the change [Biden to Harris] was made. It is exponentially different."
And as Erie goes, so goes Pennsylvania — and with it, the White House.
Weeks ago, Donald Trump was throttling Biden in Pennsylvania. Across 68 polls, the Republican led the Democratic incumbent by nearly five points. Current polling shows Harris has surged to a three-point lead nationally. In Pennsylvania, an aggregate of 28 polls has the vice president with a narrow one point lead.
With money and energy, Talarico now has eight full-time staffers in his Erie office and (at last count) 200 volunteers. But Erie is merely a microcosm of the fundamental vibe shift in American politics. Mercyhurst University political science professor Joe Morris sees in the polling what Talarico senses on the ground. The longtime observer of western Pennsylvania politics told me, "Harris has completely changed the dynamics of the race. At this time, the Trump campaign is at a loss for how to manage this." Even more ominous for the Republicans is Morris' interpretation of the political mood. Morris argued, "To beat a movement, you need a movement. Harris is on the threshold of being a leader of a movement, like Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016."
A Kamala Harris movement, if it were to emerge, would be an expression of public fatigue with Donald Trump. Talarico believes the Republican incumbent has "exhausted a lot of people" with "the same old nonsense about the size of crowds and cheating on the election." But don't take a Democratic partisan's word for it. David Urban, a native Pennsylvanian and senior advisor to Trump in 2016 and 2020, complained to me "the President needs to get refocused on the issues."
To Urban, the Harris vibe shift has shocked Trump into what are his old, bad habits. He called his former boss "one of the most gifted politicians." But in the same breath he carped "he is also one of the most flawed." What Talarico calls a "one-trick pony" is Trump's propensity to resort to what Urban calls "hand-to-hand political combat." Harris most certainly possesses the momentum, which has sent Trump into a political funk. That is the dynamic prompting the nicknames and insults, which drive even Trump's most ardent supporters batty.
The Democrat's energy is an expression of a natural anti-Trump majority in the American electorate. Composed of partisan Democrats, independents, and conservative "Never Trumpers," this majority runs across the political spectrum. For now, Harris is coalescing this heterogeneous grouping of voters. But Urban knows the vice president has potential weaknesses, especially in Erie and, therefore, Pennsylvania.
In California politics, Harris belonged to her state's pragmatic, center-left wing. But in the echo chamber of a one-party state, she drifted left in her truncated 2020 presidential run. In that race, Harris endorsed gun buybacks, fracking bans, and the Green New Deal. These positions delighted progressive activists. But, as 2020 revealed, Twitter is not real life. Liberal activists dominate social media but they don't reflect rank-and-file Democrats, much less the larger electorate. In 2020, Harris never even made it to presidential primaries. But she learned a lesson. For the 2024 presidential race, she pivoted to the center.
Despite her swivel to the center, Harris' 2019 policies still loom as political Kryptonite in Erie and Pennsylvania. Urban said of Harris' turn, "Those are some mental gymnastics that Olga Korbut would be proud of. I would love for her to come to Pennsylvania and explain her position on mandatory gun buybacks. All the Trump campaign has to do is focus on the issues. If we make this about the issues, Republicans win." But he knows that Harris' liberal centrism is good politics. That's why he growled, "If we listen to her [now], she sounds like a f*ckin' Republican."
Despite the polls and the Harris momentum, the race remains winnable for Trump. To win, Urban urges Trump to focus upon the issues in general and Erie County in particular. Half-jokingly, he told me, "The Brig Niagara should be the new presidential yacht. There should be a national holiday for Oliver Hazard Perry." Urban knows his mercurial candidate often lacks the patience and discipline for an issue-focused campaign. But in 2016, Trump, at Urban's urging, stressed his issues — immigration, deindustrialization, and globalization — in the campaign's final weeks. In the process, he won Pennsylvania and the presidency.
Liberals may loathe Trump, but the Republican possesses a political pixie dust that delights the casual non-college voter. White working-class voters comprise over half the electorate in the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. This is why Trump typically outperforms his polls in these states. As "Trump" voters, they turn out for him, and him alone. They are difficult to poll. Typifying this magic is a 2018 western Pennsylvania campaign event for Fred Keller, a Republican running for a Pittsburgh-area congressional seat. Recalling the event, Urban told me, "It was a Trump event. [But] the crowd had no idea who Keller was. All they knew is that Donald Trump was there. These voters only care that she [Kamala Harris] is not Donald Trump."
For now, 2024, looks to be a repeat of 2020 — a contest between Trump's pixie dust and old-fashioned campaign mechanics. In 2016, the Clinton campaign ignored Erie County, and every part of Pennsylvania not named Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. In 2020, Erie-area Democrats organized and boosted Biden to victory in Erie County. In 2024, Erie Democrats are planning and preparing to go beyond their COVID-constrained 2020 efforts.
Talarico is touting a "coordinated campaign" that combines his staff with a recently opened Harris office, one of 14 across Pennsylvania. And Terron Sims, who helps lead the Democratic National Committee's voter mobilization efforts, boasted, "When it comes to grassroots get-out-the-vote campaigns, no one beats the Democrats. We have professionals and super volunteers who have been doing this for decades."
To his detriment, Trump values vibes over organization. An area liberal strategist told me that the GOP's local dysfunction helped Democrats win Erie County for Biden in 2020. Four years later, Erie County Republicans have new leadership. But sources report a "major beef" between Trump forces and Erie Republicans. Bizarrely, local Republicans pay rent to the Trump campaign for a bit of space at the local Trump headquarters. A Democratic official described this arrangement as "odd." Indeed, the Harris campaign had the opposite agreement with local Democrats.
Conflict is to Trump what the sun is to organic life. So, underestimating his pixie dust, as Democrats did in 2016, can lead to defeat. Remember, Democrats won Pennsylvania in 2020 by the barest of margins, 80,555 votes out of nearly 7 million cast. To win, Trump needs to combine his casual voters with a united Republican Party. And therein lies the Trumpian rub. Political fistfights excite his casual voter base. But even these folks want some policy bread to go with their circus. Trump struggles to find the proper bread-and-circus balance. But like a power hitter in the zone, when he finds that balance, he is a political force.
The opposite side of Trump's pixie dust coin is dysfunction. Like 2020, dysfunction may prove decisive. Trump's active disdain for mail-in and early voting is a self-inflicted political wound of the highest order. In the 2022 Mehmet Oz/John Fetterman U.S. Senate race, Pennsylvania Democrats had banked 1.5 million early votes prior to election day. Before Fetterman's ill-fated televised debate against Oz, the Democrat, on the strength of his early vote, already had the senate race largely won. Urban, obviously frustrated, advised, "Trump derides early voting. Republicans need to play by the rules in the Commonwealth. We need to ensure that the voters of color who are for us are registered."
In 2024, the pixie dust may not be enough to overwhelm the Democrat's organization. Urban sighed and warned, "If we don't pivot quickly, it will be hard [to win]. Democrats are so jacked-up. The early vote will be a huge advantage for the Democrats."
Jeff Bloodworth is a professor of American political history at Gannon University. You can follow him on Twitter/X @jhueybloodworth or reach him at bloodwor003@gannon.edu
