EPHRATA, Pa. — Rob Warihay is a busy man. He farms 4,000 acres from Dover, Delaware, to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and he owns a construction company based in his home, Lancaster County.

As he waited for his daughter to show her dairy beef steer at the Ephrata Fair last week, he said who he votes for comes down to the party that makes it easier for him to run his businesses.

"Trump rolled back a lot of stupid regulations that we just don't have the money to do, that Democrats think we need," said Warihay, a registered Republican from Manheim.

He listed a bunch of examples — including a requirement that he build a retention pond just to add a tractor-trailer scale to his property.

"I'm not saying he had all the right answers but there's just so much regulation on top of regulation," he said. "And nothing gets done and it just gets tied up and costs more money."

Rural voters are the second largest voting group in the state after suburban voters and while their voting power is less concentrated, it remains the core of Republican support. Geographically the widest swaths of Pennsylvania are still Trump country, and while rural areas are losing population faster than any other type of places in the state, former President Donald Trump still managed to increase his net vote in these regions from 2016 to 2020.

That includes Lancaster County's rural areas, which moved heavily Republican. The county as a whole trended Democratic thanks to gains in more populous towns and Vice President Kamala Harris sees an opportunity to cut into Trump's support here.

'We're pot-smoking bikers'

Trump's support in rural areas reflects a longtime marriage between the conservative ideology present there and the GOP, as well as a political realignment that has shifted some Democrats rightward.

Take Paradise, Pennsylvania, a rural part of Lancaster that is home to a large Amish population where Trump got 400 more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. Multiply that across dozens of similar towns spanning 67 counties and it starts to add up.

"The Democrats seem to be catering to their wokest, leftist base and that leaves your classic Kennedy blue dog liberals out in the cold," said Dave Dorhman, a 37-year-old former Democrat from Paradise, who became a Republican last year.

Dorhman voted for Trump in the last two elections and will back him again. The father of five is a registered nurse who also owns a landscaping business. His top three issues: the economy, the border, and Second Amendment rights.

"There's definitely a feel for Trump here but I do see a lot of people who just don't agree with the current Democratic platform," he said. "Most people I know are socially liberal. We're pot-smoking bikers. We're all civil liberty people, which has historically been the Democratic Party and it's not right now."

Rural Pennsylvanians feel the brunt of inflation more acutely, locals say.

"You don't have to drive as far when you live in the suburbs, said Kirk Radanovic, Lancaster's GOP county chair. "Here in some areas, you might be 30 minutes from the grocery store."

Stephanie Smith and her husband ran a small dairy farm, which they sold in 2021. They still both work in the industry but raising three children and paying for child care and groceries is a challenge.

"Farm sizes are definitely getting bigger," Smith said. "It's harder for the smaller guys to keep up with everything."

Smith isn't hugely political but she hopes a change in party leadership at the top might help the economy. "I haven't been super thrilled with the last three years so I would hope maybe the next four would do better with Trump involved."

GOP outreach to rural and Amish voters

Physically reaching rural voters can be tricky. And as the pool of them has winnowed, Radanovic said the Trump organization has prioritized less engaged voters. "Instead of asking them to knock on 30 doors of Republicans, they're giving out lists of unregistered but probably conservative people and saying, just talk to 10 people, and the numbers are really encouraging," he said.

Lancaster, like other parts of the state, has seen a rise in GOP registrations.

And four years ago members of the Amish community in Lancaster turned out in record numbers — about 3,000 voted, according to research from Elizabethtown College. It's not a huge number but represented a high water mark and Republicans have kept up their outreach.

The party does a mail ballot program with the Amish, Radanovic said, particularly because Tuesdays, the day on which the election falls, are big wedding days in the community.

Philip Habegger grew up in an Amish community in Kentucky — one of 11 children. He loved farm life but craved more access to other cultures and wound up leaving when he was 28.

"I had a pretty broad interest in the world, but a pretty limited worldview," Habegger, now 31, said.

He registered in 2022, making this the first presidential election he'll vote in and also the first he's volunteered for. He thinks the U.S. spends too many resources on foreign wars and he's concerned about minors getting transgender care without parental permission.

"I support free choice ... However, we put limits on that, right?" Habegger said. "We put limits on that with guns, limits on that with cigarettes, alcohol, tobacco."

Habbegger noted the Amish are not very politically involved but said he sensed this is an election where they've been engaged. "A lot of it has to do with values and also has to do with costs and economics."

Both Harris and Trump picked running mates who they hope will have some appeal in rural areas. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz grew up in rural Nebraska and Sen. JD Vance's family is from the hills of eastern Kentucky, though he grew up in a Rust Belt town in Ohio.

'I cannot vote for this man'

Jim Kline went to church in Ephrata recently and saw Harris signs plastered all over the exterior of the building. His congregation rented space in a former H & R Block building, which was now also renting to the Harris campaign.

"Most of the people in my church are Trump. We're not for Kamala Harris," Kline said.

But the Harris campaign sees an opportunity here. Biden lost Lancaster by 16 percentage points in 2020 but he grew Democratic votes here as well as in rural places across the state. Two years later, Gov. Josh Shapiro lost Lancaster by less than 2 points to a weak GOP opponent, illustrating a massive shift.

"I don't think we're ever going to see a full switch up here," said George Dilio, as he manned an Ephrata Area Democrats table with his wife Ginny at the fair. "Our intent is to cut into any statewide or countywide totals. And obviously, be encouraging as much as we can."

The day the Harris office opened was particularly heartening. The couple found a crowd spilling out of the office onto the sidewalk.

"Every Democrat in the Ephrata area thinks there's nobody else, but when you see people coming out of the woodwork, it matters," Ginny Dilio said.

Democrats here are trying to show independent and some Republican voters that there's a home for them in the Harris campaign, too.

The campaign held its first "Republicans for Harris" in Manheim Township last month, which brought in about 200 people.

"I cannot vote for this man," said Dennis Sitler, 83, a retired accountant and paralegal from Lititz, who attended.

Sitler said it's not all about blocking Trump. He also thinks Harris is a solid candidate.

"And I think she will surround herself with support people where Trump has never surrounded himself with people who will support us," Sitler said.

Nearby, five women in matching Converse sneakers and Harris T-shirts collected some of the Republicans for Harris signs to distribute around the county. They were all Democrats hoping to learn how to better message to Republicans as they go door to door.

The women, who live in the same development, came together this summer to share frustrations when Biden was still the nominee.

"We were sitting here in a red county, it wasn't looking good at all, so I said 'Let's get together,'" said Nannette Davis. Their first meeting was on the Sunday that Biden dropped out of the race.

From that point on, Davis said, the purpose of the group shifted.

"We turned from being a support group to activists."

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