Erie, Pennsylvania:
The command center for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign in one of the most contested districts in key battleground state Pennsylvania is in a small room in a strip mall office leased by the Erie County Republican Party.
The otherwise sleepy office comes alive several times a week when the two-person team hosts the volunteer network the campaign calls Trump Force 47.
A few miles away in a busy downtown Erie office, paid staff and volunteers from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign are fielding phone calls, pushing new campaign buttons and organizing watch parties and phone banking. Blackboard maintains the door-knocking tally: 12,000 households so far toward a target of 20,000, or nearly one in five in the county.
Just four weeks before the Nov. 5 presidential election, the battle for Erie County — a historic must-win county in a must-win state — demonstrates the urgency of identifying and reaching out to individual voters in a campaign that remains stubbornly close, according to campaign officials and volunteers for both campaigns.
While the Harris campaign used its significant cash advantage and newfound enthusiasm to build a towering ground operation aimed at mobilizing supporters and identifying new voters, Trump’s campaign focused on infrequent voters and betting on a voter registration drive that has chipped away at a traditional Democratic advantage.
Harris and the Democratic Party raised $361 million in August, compared to $130 million for Trump and the Republicans, and she spent nearly three times as much as her opponent this month, federal financial filings show.
Reuters interviewed about 40 supporters, campaign workers, volunteers and voters who said Harris’ advantage in the ground game could test whether brick-and-mortar campaigns still prove useful in campaigns defined by viral moments, influencers and social media ad wars.
“Trump and his team seem to be banking on the power of his personal appeal,” said Chris Borick, a sociologist and professor of political science at Pennsylvania Muhlenberg College.
“Harris and the Democrats are deeply invested in a more traditional ground game here, and so this election will be a test of dramatically different strategies.”
Volunteers and pollsters also described growing tensions as campaigns poured millions of dollars into divisive digital and TV ads, robocalls, text messages and door-knocking.
“I’ve been pretty bombarded with mail, phone calls and texts,” said Erin Miller, 38, a bartender and mother of six who recently moved to the state from Colorado and has yet to vote locally in a presidential election, making her makes a primary goal for campaigns.
With 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is the biggest prize among the battleground states that will decide the election.
Erie County, a blue-collar region with 177,000 registered voters, has voted with the winning presidential candidate in the last four elections.
Biden won Erie County in 2020 by less than 1,500 votes, or 1.03 percentage points, an even closer margin than his 1.2 percentage point victory in Pennsylvania overall. In 2016, Trump won Erie County over Hillary Clinton by less than 2,000 votes.
The Harris campaign and the Democratic Party have three offices in Erie County and eight paid staffers along with more than 300 volunteers.
“That’s the leading part of it. The fact is that this particular city, in this particular state, can ultimately decide who is president, and they know it,” said Marie Troyer, 60, a retired teacher who got a job on the campaign trail answering phones and managing of volunteers.
BOOTS ON THE GROUND
Despite the ground game advantage, Harris’ campaign has found it difficult to mobilize black voters, who make up about 16 percent of the city’s population, especially black men, according to Reuters interviews.
Howard Pratchett, 48, a barber, said he planned to vote for Trump because he was more “real” than Harris. “We don’t care about LBGT rights. We don’t care about, you know, abortion rights. We don’t worry about that. They offer nothing to ordinary black voters,” Pratchett said.
Monty Davis, 51, who runs a local youth program, said he appreciates President Joe Biden’s efforts to cut spending and plans to vote for Harris. But he cautioned that energy among the black community is not as high as it was under Presidents Barack Obama or Biden.
“It’s just not as intense,” Davis said.
Two paid Trump campaign staffers in Erie are also monitoring two other counties, according to Erie County Republican Chairman Tom Eddy.
The Trump campaign and local Republicans declined to say how many volunteers they have in the county, but local officials acknowledged they have fewer than Democrats.
As in other battleground states, Trump’s camp relies on deep-pocketed outside groups — like billionaire Elon Musk’s America PAC — and a much looser network of supporters and volunteers to mobilize voters.
Since 2015, when Trump emerged as the front-runner in Republican politics, Republicans and outside groups have significantly narrowed the Democratic lead in voter registrations in Erie and in Pennsylvania overall.
In 2015, Democrats enjoyed a roughly 33,000 voter registration advantage in Erie County, but that has been reduced to 10,000, according to current county election records.
Statewide, Democrats have an estimated 338,400 voter registration advantage over Republicans, down from the commanding 892,624 advantage Democrats held in 2016, state voter data show.
Sam Talerico, the county’s Democratic Party chairman, acknowledged the Republican surge in registrations was unwelcome news.
“We certainly don’t like to see these license plates converge, but that’s the bad news. The good news is, you know, I still think we have an advantage with independents turning our way, and that makes the difference,” he said.
Republicans are also banking on Trump’s frequent visits — five rallies over three campaigns in Erie, including two visits this election. Rallies present opportunities for mobilization as organizers register voters and collect cell phone numbers and email information.
Harris will make his first visit to Erie on Oct. 14. Her teammate Tim Walz visited in September.
And then there’s Trump Force 47, the network of volunteers who knock on the doors of infrequent voters to determine whether they plan to vote and for whom. Volunteers win prizes, such as hats and sweaters, for knocking on more doors.
“We are not trying to convince anyone. Rather, the campaign is trying to make sure that people who are already inclined to vote for Trump will come out and vote,” said volunteer Justin Berkheimer, 39, who works at a group home for the mentally disabled.
HOT CAMPAIGN
For both campaigns, the intensity of the battle for Erie has turned into threats, antagonism and awkward conversations, volunteers said.
Half a dozen die-hard Trump fans told Reuters they were uncomfortable being seen as public supporters of the former president.
That’s a departure from 2016, when Erie was flooded with Trump signs, according to local officials and volunteers.
Patrick Fuller, 50, a credit union employee who said he knocked on more than 2,000 doors for Trump this election, said he leaves his red MAGA hat at home to avoid confrontation.
“A lot of people are afraid to step in because they’re afraid someone will berate them or threaten them,” Fuller said.
Other volunteers said their cars were spat on for displaying Trump bumper stickers.
County Democrats said they ran into tensions as they pushed into rural areas, opening a satellite office in a part of the county that Trump won with 72 percent of the vote in 2020.
Volunteer Kelly Chelton, 62, described a man who lunged at a volunteer because he was angered by the large wooden sign: “Christians Against Trump.”
“He came looking for a fight,” Chelton said. “He asked how you know Trump is not a Christian. She added: “He was just screaming and shouting.”
The county party later installed video security cameras, Chelton said.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published by a syndicated channel.)
