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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 mentioned 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, informed The Publish at a fuel station throughout the road from the place Walz’s “New Manner Ahead” jet landed simply moments earlier than.
Filling up his tank, Palermo famous that below 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 might be swayed towards Harris.
“I don’t suppose she has sufficient expertise,” he mentioned — 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 mean Joe, however I’ve my suspicions of the typical Joe speak,” he mentioned. 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, mentioned he voted “straight Democrat” in 2020 however isn’t certain the place his vote goes this 12 months.
“All people’s not who they are saying they’re,” Jones informed The Publish. “They inform you one factor one minute, one other the following minute.”
Harris in her first interview as nominee mentioned 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, informed The Publish Harris “is simply too showy. She’s pretend.” 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 uninterested in the name-bashing,” LaCastro informed The Publish, 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 struggle” as a result of she says she’ll convey down prices, however “you might be vp,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, “my soul can’t vote for” Trump and his “venom,” LaCastro mentioned, even when he preferred Trump’s economic system.
Whereas his staff are evenly break up between Harris and Trump, he mentioned 30% are like him: undecided.
Palermo is aware of a whole lot of “very disenchanted” Individuals “who aren’t going to vote.”
He voted twice for Obama as a result of “he may relate to the individuals.” He had the “essence of Kennedy.”
“I’d wish to see somebody who can convey 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 be undecided. “I’m up for grabs with regards to this election. I don’t belief both get together proper now. I can level the finger at Trump one million occasions. Kamala, we are able to do the identical,” including the VP doesn’t have the expertise he’s searching for in a president.
“She’s a phenomenal lady. She’s clever. Can she run this nation? No,” Henderson mentioned.
His vote will come all the way down to belief: “Too many individuals promise too many issues.”
His pocketbook may even play into his choice — he’s “not saving any cash proper now.”
“How can I vote this individual in when she’s a part of that administration?”
Henderson was set to fulfill 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 would be capable to make up my thoughts.”
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