Harrisburg Suburb Voters Are Moving Away from Donald Trump

LOWER ALLEN, Pa. — Joseph Swartz began calling himself a disgruntled Republican in 2008, what he saw as a more antagonistic, Sarah Palin-style version of Republican Party policies.

In 2016, Swartz voted for Hillary Clinton, the first time he had supported a Democratic presidential candidate.

Shortly thereafter, he left the party altogether.

“I didn’t feel comfortable having to do, you know, the kind of logical gymnastics to explain how voting Republican was consistent with my Christian faith,” said Swartz, 37. “… It started to wear on me, and it culminated in me leaving the party in 2017.”

Last year, he became the first Democrat elected in nearly two decades to the five-member board of commissioners in Lower Allen, a suburban town of about 20,000 people south of Harrisburg in Cumberland County.

In the national elections, the commune is narrowly divided and has moved to the left, but has remained timidly go over to the Democratic side.

Former President Donald Trump won Lower Allen by more than 1,000 votes in 2016 but by just 129 votes in 2020. Those Democratic gains reflect a shift in small-town suburbs across the state, which have long been solidly red. The Philadelphia suburbs have gained attention for becoming increasingly Democratic in recent years and helping President Joe Biden win in 2020, but an Inquirer analysis of election results shows that smaller-town suburbs are also key to both parties’ chances of winning the White House in November.

Although Trump is still the favorite in Cumberland County, which is are majority Republican and majority rural and suburban. Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to continue her party’s success in areas like Lower Allen will be a key factor to watch.

Democrats like Swartz are hopeful about their chances.

“The ideological shift may be happening faster than we expected,” Swartz said.

Democrats hope to win in Cumberland County

The Republican Party continues to have a powerful presence in the Harrisburg area.

West of Lower Allen, Trump signs are noticeable exhibited in the city center Carlisle, county seat, including the county’s Republican committee headquarters.

On nearby Democratic headquarters, residents filed in on a recent Monday afternoon to add their names to a list of Harris-Walz signs that have not yet arrived. Party officials hope to mobilize their base — and attract independent and impressionable Republicans.

“We often tell voters, ‘This is not your father’s Republican Party,’” said Matt Roan, chairman of the Cumberland County Democratic Committee.

Roan said the county party is also focusing on lower-level elections, such as the Democratic elections Janelle Stelson’s attempt to unseat U.S. Rep. Scott Perry and the race for the state House of Representatives in which the Democrat Sara Agerton is challenging Republican state Rep. Sheryl Delozier. And she hopes Harris can improve Biden’s 2020 showing in the county.

“Kamala Harris may not win Cumberland County, but if she loses by five points rather than 10, that will have a big impact on Democratic support for Pennsylvania,” he said.

However, Democrats will face an uphill battle in this county because Republicans still have a significant numerical advantage over Democrats in terms of registered voters: 81,000 to 55,000.

Frank Hancock, 73, has lived in Carlisle for almost 30 years and said agrees with Trump on “almost everything.” Hancock, a veteran, even spoke at the former president’s rally in Harrisburg in July.

He said he was thinking The Democratic swing will be reversed this year due to the cost of living, and Harris was criticized for not discussing specifics of her policies at the Democratic National Convention.

“Look what they said. First of all, they said, ‘We will have joy and hope,’ which is fine, but here there is no joy and no hope,” he said.

Some suburban voters say they’re fed up with Trump

Richard Schin, 74, former Lower Allen County Republican Party commissioner, said his complaints about Biden for the people at the gas station are usually well received.

“It’s not unusual for me to look and say, ‘Did you ever think about filling up your own tank and paying that kind of money? Thanks, Uncle Joe,'” he said. “You know, they say, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ Maybe it’s the circles I run in, you know. They say, you know, white stallions run with other palominos.”

Trump wasn’t Schin’s first choice. He voted for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the primary and noted Trump “is not an altar boy.”

But life was easier four years ago, he said.

“I just can’t not support him because he’s my only choice on the side that’s done well,” he said.

Others in the region have left the Republican Party.

Mary O’Donnell from Upper Allen, which borders Lower Allen, he said she always voted Republican because her parents supported the GOP. A teacher and mother, O’Donnell, 83, didn’t pay much attention to politics. That changed with Trump.

O’Donnell had a low opinion of Trump in 2016, but her friend — a staunch Trump supporter whom O’Donnell hasn’t seen much of lately — convinced her to vote for him. In 2020, O’Donnell voted for Biden and plans to vote for Harris.

“I voted for Donald Trump when he first ran, and I regretted voting for him very quickly after the election,” she said. “He’s such a conceited man, he thinks he knows everything, and nobody else does anything right.”

Christine Rigling, 54, of neighboring New Cumberland, is also a former Trump voter. Rigling, who is married to the Lower Allen fire chief, said she and her husband voted for Trump in 2016, even though they didn’t necessarily like him. Both are Democrats now and voted for Biden in 2020.

“We thought maybe he would listen to the people around him who were more educated and understanding,” said Rigling, who works as a medical transcriber. “But that didn’t happen.”

“I’m a Republican, like all my friends”

Dean Villone, 55 years antique, The chairman of the Lower Allen Board of Commissioners, facing the other way, is a Republican who used to be a Democrat.

Villone was raised a Democrat but switched his registration in 2017 to run his first campaign because he was more comfortable with Republican fiscal policies.

He would not reveal how he voted in the last presidential election or how he would vote this year.

He believes that the democratic change in Lower Allen is the result novel people moving in and potentially older Republicans moving out to retire. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if Lower Allen eventually turned blue.

Villone said he stopped putting up lawn signs for the national election because some voters seemed uncomfortable with them. He described Lower Allen as a place where people tend to tread carefully when it comes to politics.

“I think people who are entrenched on both sides and hate the other side so much will always get worked up,” he said. “But I think if you look at the majority of people — I think that’s a growing group — they’re just desensitized to it.”

On a shining Tuesday evening, Seth Matson, a 26-year-old field organizer in Agerton, Democratic candidate for state representative, knocked on doors in Lower Allen. Most people did not answer their doors, and the area was tranquil except for barking dogs. There were no signs on the lawn.

Matson At age 9, he moved from the Democratic stronghold of California to the suburbs of Harrisburg and attended Cedar Cliff High School in Lower Allen, and now he lives in the neighboring Lemoyne. In 2016, he started a Young Democrats club in high school that had just three members. By the end of last school year, there were seven.

“If I didn’t have my own beliefs, which I formed quite early, I’d be a Republican like all my friends,” he said.