Voting results show that, despite widespread claims by conservative activists on social media, Amish voters cannot be credited with winning Pennsylvania for President-elect Donald Trump.
While there appears to be a marginal boost in the number of Amish voters this year, experts say they don’t expect any major changes according to an early analysis of voting results in Lancaster County precincts with gigantic Amish populations this year.
The gigantic Amish community in Lancaster County and across the state – many of whom dress casually, minimize their utilize of technology and cling to their insular, self-sufficient communities – have has long been seen as an untapped voting bloc for Republicans.
Many Amish in Pennsylvania do not vote, and some consider it contrary to their religious beliefs of serving God’s kingdom by cooperating with earthly government.
However, this has been slowly changing in recent years, with the biggest jump occurring four years ago when Amish turnout more than doubled from 7% in 2016 to 17% in 2020 with approximately 20,000 Amish who are of legal age voting in Lancaster County. that is, about 3,400 votes.
Experts won’t know exactly how many Amish voted until the final voter rolls are available, at which point researchers will conduct a painstaking process of comparing voters’ names, addresses and birthdates with data on Amish church rolls. Amish experts from the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College do not digitize or scan catalogs because Amish leaders oppose it.
“I don’t expect a big increase in Amish voters,” said Steven Nolt, an Amish expert who runs the Young Center. “In 2020 the overall data suggests something different between 2016 and 2020. This is not the case this time as our focus is on 2020 and 2024.”
Push for more Amish voters
Republicans wanted to have even more Amish voters in Pennsylvania this year, in an election that was expected to be as close as the last two presidential cycles. President-elect Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by more than 121,000 votes, increasing his vote share across the state, including in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, said America PAC, a political action committee he founded to support Trump, was arranging rides to the polls for Amish people, who often do not drive motor vehicles but may be passengers.
Billboards and mailers targeted the Amish community to encourage them to vote for Trump. One grassroots group organized weekly voter registration drives at Amish markets in Lancaster and Mifflin counties.
Philip Habegger, who grew up Amish in Kentucky as one of 11 children before leaving his community at age 27, said his family “wouldn’t consider voting at all” even though they were informed and interested in politics. Habegger, now 31 and living in Lancaster, volunteered for the Trump campaign.
The Trump campaign never expected turnout to quadruple as some experts claimed, but it knew it could convince more Amish to vote in this election in Pennsylvania. They share many of the same beliefs as Republicans: They focus on religious freedom, economic opportunity, in other words, they want to “mind about their own business,” Habegger said.
“When it comes to efficiency, the Amish are much better at these things than the government,” Habegger said.
Scott Presler, a conservative activist who runs the grassroots group Early Vote Action that organized weekly voter registration drives and moved to Pennsylvania to turn the state red, said his organization will remain here and is preparing to hire 19 full-time employees next week.
It is also increasing their engagement with Amish voters by hiring a state director to specifically solicit votes from the Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities.
“We won’t leave. It’s truly a collaborative effort, not just every presidential year,” Presler said of his organization’s efforts to get more Amish to vote in Pennsylvania.
His part of his group’s broader strategy to gradually increase the vote count in every county in Pennsylvania: bring in 500 to 1,000 new voters for Trump and win the state – and that’s exactly what Trump did. Presler noted that all counties with large Amish populations cast more votes for Trump this year than in 2020, but he acknowledged that not all of those increases can be attributed to Amish voters.
Pennsylvania, which has the largest population in the country, is home to more than 90,000 Amish and Old Order Mennonites, with the largest population concentrated in Lancaster County.
There are approximately 400,000 Amish in the United States, mainly in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The population continues to grow at a rapid pace, nearly doubling every 20 years, and families have an average of six to nine children, which means even more voters, Presler added.
State Rep. Dave Zimmerman (R., Lancaster), who represents a district with large Amish and Old Order Mennonite populations, said those groups are involved and concerned about the election outcome.
“The Amish will be most concerned about being free and being Amish,” Zimmerman added. “Any issue that disrupts their lifestyle in some way will be a focus,” such as invasive regulation or restrictions on their religious freedom.
“Mostly they want to be left alone to raise their families, send their children to school, work on a farm or work in the construction industry,” Zimmerman said.
