Republicans ramp up efforts to court Amish voters in Pennsylvania
“That’s not a woman’s position,” a straw-hatted Amish man in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, says wistfully, referring to the presidency. “I’ve got [voter-registration] papers in my pocket right now.” He’s been taking part in a “mud sale”, an Amish charity auction, in a field near the community of Paradise. While the auctioneer shows off his impressive lung capacity, several Republican volunteers mingle among the crowd handing out voter-registration papers and Trump-Vance flags. “I did this four years ago,” one of them says, and “it’s even better now.”
Pennsylvania has 93,000 Amish people, double the number in 2000. Almost half live in Lancaster County. They could in theory help swing the critical state, which Joe Biden won by just over 80,000 votes in 2020. But the Amish, who famously eschew electricity and cars, don’t have much time for politics either. Typically, less than 10% vote. That said, it’s clear that the Amish worldview aligns neatly with traditional Republican beliefs in limited government and social conservatism, say Steve Nolt and Kyle Kopko, academics at Elizabethtown College. Of Amish folk who do register, more than 90% do so as Republicans.
Efforts to court them have increased. “Amish PAC”, founded in 2016, spent more than $300,000 on advertising in the past two presidential cycles. The scarcity of Trump billboards in the area points to a tactical shift to face-to-face canvassing, which Mr Kopko reckons has found greater success. Between 2016 and 2020 voter registration among the Amish in Lancaster County doubled to over 4,000, and among those registered turnout grew from 49% to 71%.
With Pennsylvania a toss-up, Republican operatives are busy. Scott Presler, a conservative activist, founded “Early Vote Action” in 2023 to encourage mail-in voting. “The Amish could very well save the United States,” he says. Mr Presler and his ilk have been turning up at Amish sawmills and farmers’ markets, pitching their message that Donald Trump stands for world peace and the freedom for the Amish to live as they choose. Their U-turn on mail-in voting, “something which the Democrats really pushed”, he gloats, will enable the Amish to vote in private, away from the prying eyes of any disapproving peers.
Even if the Amish taboo around voting has begun to fray, there is a snag. By tradition, Amish weddings happen on Tuesdays in autumn and involve hundreds of guests. Presidential elections, held on a Tuesday in November, may well be overshadowed. So early voting may not just be a smart tactic in turning out the Amish. It could be essential. ■
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