ERIE, Pa. — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump deployed their operating mates to a Rust Belt bellwether county to make their case to swing voters in a crucial battleground state.
However was anybody swung?
Historical past exhibits Erie County picks presidents — it went for Barack Obama twice, Trump in 2016, then Biden in 2020.
Sen. J.D. Vance made his pitch there for the Trump ticket on the finish of August, and voters stated his story of rising up in a left-behind Ohio city resonated with them. Then Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made his Erie working-class overtures final week for the Democratic ticket.
“I’m on the fence on each candidates,” Vince Palermo, a 45-year-old Millcreek Township small-business proprietor, instructed The Submit at a fuel station throughout the road from the place Walz’s “New Approach Ahead” jet landed simply moments earlier than.
Filling up his tank, Palermo famous that beneath Trump’s administration, “we didn’t have these value gouges.” Now “the whole lot goes up.”
Palermo, previously on the Erie County Democrats’ board, registered as a Republican in 2020 and voted for Trump “to see what an outsider may do.”
However in 2024, he’s struggling to help Trump and believes his assaults on judges have “made a mockery” of the criminal-justice system: The ex-prez “simply doesn’t care.”
Nonetheless, Palermo admitted it was “powerful” to say if he could possibly be swayed towards Harris.
“I don’t assume she has sufficient expertise,” he stated — not like Hillary Clinton, for whom he voted in 2016.
Palermo wasn’t too impressed with Walz’s Erie remarks however conceded the VP hopeful is “extra of an individual” than present VP Harris, noting he turned down wage will increase as governor in 2023 and 2024.
“He comes throughout as a median Joe, however I’ve my suspicions of the common Joe discuss,” he stated. Dems picked him “simply because he has grey hair.”
Palermo wasn’t the one undecided voter who stopped for fuel in Millcreek Township that day.
Chuck Jones, 40 and a field stacker from Erie, stated he voted “straight Democrat” in 2020 however isn’t certain the place his vote goes this 12 months.
“Everyone’s not who they are saying they’re,” Jones instructed The Submit. “They let you know one factor one minute, one other the following minute.”
Harris in her first interview as nominee stated she wouldn’t ban fracking, which is massive enterprise in Pennsylvania — and denied she was flip-flopping after saying at a CNN city corridor when operating for president in 2019, “There’s no query I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
Lehualani Rounds, a 43-year-old Erie health-care employee, instructed The Submit Harris “is simply too showy. She’s faux.” She plans to vote for Trump once more as a result of he “doesn’t sugarcoat issues.”
She’s not alone in her emotions on the race’s theatrics. Barry LaCastro, 50 and the enterprise agent for Erie’s native Worldwide Alliance of Theatrical Stage Staff union, isn’t impressed with the Vance-Walz mudslinging: “Why can’t you simply run in your platform?”
“Folks like me are bored with the name-bashing,” LaCastro instructed The Submit, as his males broke down the set of the Walz rally and loaded tools onto vehicles headed for Pittsburgh.
Harris is in a “verbal tug of warfare” as a result of she says she’ll carry down prices, however “you’re vp,” he stated.
Nonetheless, “my soul can’t vote for” Trump and his “venom,” LaCastro stated, even when he preferred Trump’s financial system.
Whereas his workers are evenly break up between Harris and Trump, he stated 30% are like him: undecided.
Palermo is aware of loads of “very disillusioned” Individuals “who usually are not going to vote.”
He voted twice for Obama as a result of “he may relate to the folks.” He had the “essence of Kennedy.”
“I’d prefer to see somebody who can carry us collectively,” Palermo declared. Harris “simply doesn’t have it, and I don’t know if she’s ever going to get it.”
Kasheen Henderson, 58, a retired pipe fitter who’s voted predominantly for Democrats and works with a renters’ affiliation to maintain rents down within the space, can also be undecided. “I’m up for grabs relating to this election. I don’t belief both celebration proper now. I can level the finger at Trump 1,000,000 occasions. Kamala, we will do the identical,” including the VP doesn’t have the expertise he’s on the lookout for in a president.
“She’s a fantastic girl. She’s clever. Can she run this nation? No,” Henderson stated.
His vote will come all the way down to belief: “Too many individuals promise too many issues.”
His pocketbook may also play into his choice — he’s “not saving any cash proper now.”
“How can I vote this particular person in when she’s a part of that administration?”
Henderson was set to satisfy with Walz whereas he was on the town for the renters’ affiliation, however the VP hopeful canceled.
He says if and when the group does meet with Walz, “I’d be capable of make up my thoughts.”
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