Signs of the times in Pennsylvania

“I vote for the convicted felon”

October can be a cruel month. As I was driving through my home county (Union) in central Pennsylvania, I saw a sign with the above message in front of a house deep in the mountains. His gloating took me back to previous Octobers – 2016 and 2020 – waiting for the ax to fall. From a dazed distance, I can still remember the last orderly time in 2012. Mitt Romney would have done bad things, but hardly threatened the silly, anti-majoritarian “democracy” we all took for granted at the time.

My hometown is Lewisburg, home to Bucknell University (and a federal prison, but we don't talk about that). It was always a beautiful college town and is now gentrified and deep blue; Biden got 70 percent last time. But the county is red through and through, with the level of urban-rural separation where signs dominate the roadsides and front yards. Democrats only reached 37 percent in Union County in 2020 — slightly higher than 35 percent four years earlier. As throughout rural PA, the Harris-Walz campaign's goal in our 10-county north-central region is simply to narrow the Republican lead. Josh Shapiro, who ran for governor in 2022 against incumbent candidate Doug Mastriano on January 6, 2021, got nearly 43 percent in the Union, and something like that across rural PA would doom Trump.

When I returned to Union County to canvass and help put up large Harris signs on county roads, I felt a deep appreciation for the Democratic base that exists among the party's layers of consultants, bureaucrats, fundraisers , experts and elected officials who feed on the feeding trough of institutional power. City dwellers, whether in Manhattan or Lewisburg, refer to Trumpies as all people without a college degree and all white people in rural areas and small towns. These classist stereotypes are being refuted by the Harris voters you meet here on your doorstep. When I identified them for our latest GOTV push, I found several hundred working-class men and women in the wealthier suburbs joined by middle-class independents. And not in fancy Lewisburg – we advertise in rusty old towns in several counties, places like Sunbury, Selinsgrove, Danville and Mifflinburg. In places like this, Harris-Walz signs are confused with Trump-Vance signs, and our voters gesture ruefully at their neighbors.

Out here, the Democrats are the people who still stand up for decency, if you'll pardon that old, noble word. These are people who would never vote for a convicted felon, let alone brag about it. My impression is that the Trump years have toughened them up in a quiet Pennsylvania way; They've gotten used to being harassed and yelled at. There is no more uncertainty about where you stand, no more muddy middle.

There are certainly plenty of surprises. Early on, I encountered a number of Democratic women who supported Trump because they “don’t like the way the country is going” or “the border has been open for years,” and Harris did nothing about it. Aside from being white, they don't fit into any cohort – from a wealthy woman in yoga pants to a Harley rider in a headscarf.

But just as often I was pleasantly surprised. Our Big Sign team just put this up on a major farmland road for Pam Weaver, a die-hard Democrat who lives in her parents' house, and there are many like her. She happily recalled all the mess she and her mom made with her Biden sign in 2020 and pointed out that we should put the sign next to her porch so she could keep an eye on it.

The second sign speaks of something different, something sadder. We had gone to Juniata County to repair a sabotaged sign. That Trump is spreading the joys of transgression is hardly news, but that what we once called “toilet humor” is now so unremarkable, even triumphant, in the public eye is simply depressing. How do parents explain why this sign is “funny” to their children in this tiny community?

The most encouraging thing I've heard is that there are significantly fewer Trump signs than last time and that widespread hostility toward Democrats is easing due to half-hidden signs of encouragement. Last Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Lancaster County, where I used to teach, was turning purple. The focus was on how the Democrats' float and booth received an above-average response at Ephrata's annual Fair Parade. That same day I was driving around with Gary Kendall, a retired engineer and experienced sign installer, and he casually mentioned that he noticed the same phenomenon a few weeks ago while manning the booth at the West End Fair in Union County, and that some “Older women” were balanced. Give us a thumbs up.”