Only two of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties voted for Barack Obama twice, then Donald Trump, and then Joe Biden.
Erie County, a blue-collar county in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, could decide who wins this pivotal battleground, which could decide the winner of the 2024 presidential race.
Spectrum News spent two days in Erie this week to see both how voters are feeling ahead of November’s election and what the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns are doing to win them over.
Professor Joe Morris, the chair of the political science department at Mercyhurst University in Erie, said the county “has the voters that have been a critical bloc that each campaign has tried to win in the last few years."
Erie County is wedged between Northeast Ohio and Western New York, along the shores of Lake Erie. Over the last two decades, it’s become a bellwether in Pennsylvania.
“Erie County has voted for the winner in nearly every statewide election since 2008,” Morris told Spectrum News.
The county is dotted with closed factories, beautiful but sometimes abandoned homes, and a remarkably even divide of yard signs in support of Trump and Harris.
At the Erie County Republican Party headquarters, Chairman Tom Eddy was asked how the race has changed since Biden stepped out and Harris stepped in.
“Significantly,” he told Spectrum News.
Eddy acknowledges Trump’s path to win Erie County became more challenging when Harris entered the race.
But he said concerns about the economy are helping the Trump campaign meet that challenge here, with the help of three paid Trump campaign staffers who are working alongside local GOP volunteers in the county party’s office.
“We keep this office open six days a week and it’s all pure volunteers,” Eddy said.
Over at the Erie County Democratic Party headquarters, Chairman Sam Talarico said enthusiasm among Democrats exploded after Harris stepped in.
“We had a watch party for the debate two weeks ago. We had 320 people at it. Normally we’d get 25 or 30,” he told Spectrum News.
Harris has a more robust operation in Erie than Trump does, with 11 paid staffers and a standalone office.
Talarico said it’s enabled them to step up outreach to rural voters in an effort to shave Trump’s margins in red parts of the county. It’s a strategy the campaign is pursuing statewide and nationally.
He said the local party views the economy and reproductive rights as its top issues.
“We’re planning on a very close election,” Talarico said.
In recent weeks, vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance have made campaign stops in Erie.
Residents Spectrum News spoke with were divided.
“I lived four years under the Trump administration and everything was more affordable, it was positive, I felt like our country was safer,” said Michele Chereson, who is volunteering for the Trump campaign.
Harris fans like Darryl Lyons said Trump had his chance, and failed.
“The people have learned their lesson, not in a way that’s going to help him flip this county, but in a way that’s saying, ‘Hey, ‘we’re not going back to that,’” Lyons said.
Independent voters could decide who wins Erie County. But some, like Denise Boyles, feel isolated.
“I don’t like my choices at all. I will do a write-in, which will be my own name,” she told Spectrum News.
Folks in Erie County said they identify more with the Midwest than the East Coast, and the messaging from both campaigns reflects that.
Trump was two hours south of Erie this week to take part in a farming roundtable while Harris traveled to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to talk about the economy, including manufacturing.