How Bellwether County Stacks Up for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

When Vice President Kamala Harris visited Pennsylvania's Erie County this month, she emphasized its status as a bellwether.

"Erie County, you are a pivot county," she told the crowd during a rally in Erie on October 14. "Because how you all vote in presidential elections often ends up predicting the national result."

She urged residents to make a plan to vote, adding: "The election is here and we need to organize. We need to mobilize. We need to energize folks. And we need to remind everybody that their vote is their voice, and your voice is your power."

Harris' comments reflected the urgency of reaching each and every voter possible in Erie County, which has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election since 2008.

The expectation is that whoever wins the county this year will also carry Pennsylvania and triumph in the Electoral College, making Erie County a must-win county for Harris and her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump .

Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is arguably the most sought-after of the seven battlegrounds in what is expected to be a closely contested race that is set to hinge on tiny margins in those states.

Erie County, which has 177,000 registered voters, voted for Barack Obama twice before swinging for Trump in 2016 and then Joe Biden in 2020. Trump won the county in 2016 by fewer than 2,000 voters and Biden won in 2020 by fewer than 1,500.

The county "was known as a Democrat area until Trump came along," Trump bragged at a rally in Erie in late September, despite the county's pivot to Biden in 2020. "Well, we love you. We're the same people. You, me, we're the same."

And Trump, like Harris, stressed the importance of securing every vote possible in the county during his visit.

"We need each and every one of you to make a plan to vote early and vote absentee. Do whatever you want. The main thing is you got to get out and you got to vote," he said during the rally. "We also need you to find as many other new voters as you can."

Trump was trailing Harris by four points in Erie County, 48 percent to 44 percent, according to a Suffolk University poll conducted in September, although her lead was within the survey's margin of error.

Most polls show the race between Harris and Trump is neck-and-neck in Pennsylvania less than a week before Election Day.

Tracy Carner, a 64-year-old seasonal maintenance worker who lives in East Springfield, a rural township in the county, is among the voters who backed Trump in 2016 but flipped to Biden in 2020.

Despite registering as a Republican about two years ago, he told Newsweek that he will vote for Harris in November: "She's more level-headed," he said.

Carner said he voted for Biden in 2020 because he "didn't want to see Donald Trump get a second term and become even more radical than he was the first term."

Trump is "dangerous," he added. "I would not trust him with a ballpoint pen that had ink in it."

Carner's partner, Melissa Fiolek, 51, is also backing Harris, citing her commitment to defending abortion rights.

"No man should have control of my body," she told Newsweek. "I absolutely hate [Trump's] attitude, behavior and victimizing history against women...my daughters' and granddaughters' future will be in jeopardy with him as president."

While Harris speaks with "maturity and intelligence," Fiolek said Trump "acts like a 12-year-old who doesn't get his way."

Kyle Churman, the 36-year-old owner of a coffee shop in Erie, is also voting for Harris: "It's not even a question," he told Newsweek.

Churman said he believes Harris' economic policies will be more beneficial for him and other small business owners. His support for LGBTQ+ and abortion rights is also a factor, he said.

He also fears that Trump's immigration policies would be harmful to the area he has lived in for almost two decades.

"We do a lot of refugee resettlement here," he said. "Our community is so vibrant because of those people...Erie is a great place for them to live and I think if Trump's policies, especially on immigration, were to happen, it would be devastating to not just those communities in Erie, but the larger Erie community here."

There are more Trump than Harris supporters in the rural part of Erie County where Carner lives, he told Newsweek.

"I see more Donald Trump signs in yards," he said. "I've had lively discussions with a few people."

And Harris, who would be the first Black woman to become president if elected in November, has struggled to connect to Black voters, who make up 16 percent of Erie's population, particularly Black men, according to Reuters.

Howard Pratchett, 48, a barber, told the news agency that he plans to vote for Trump.

"We don't care about LBGT rights. We don't care about, you know, abortion rights," he said. "We're not worried about that. They don't offer anything to the straight Black male voters."

Several Trump supporters also told Reuters that they are uncomfortable being seen publicly supporting the former president, with tensions in the county rising to threats and antagonism.

Trump's running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance , returned to Erie to hammer home the Republican ticket's message to voters on Saturday, attacked his Democratic opponents on issues including the economy and immigration.

His remarks impressed Judy Miller, a Republican who lives in Erie: "He spoke a lot on policy," Miller told The Meadville Tribune.

The Harris campaign has built a robust ground-game operation with a reported 11 paid staffers, two campaign offices and more than 500 active volunteers.

Sam Talerico, chairman of Erie County Democrats , told Newsweek that the party is "cautiously optimistic," although he acknowledged that the race is set to be extremely close.

Talerico said the campaign expects to have knocked on 75,000 doors in the county by Election Day.

"We continually sign up volunteers...and the enthusiasm is off the charts," he said. "Because of what we are seeing on the ground, we are cautiously optimistic about the race in Erie County, and the race nationwide."

The Trump campaign's efforts on the ground in Erie County are on a smaller scale: a two-person staff based in a small strip-mall office and a volunteer network that has been knocking on the doors of infrequent voters to determine whether they plan to vote and for which candidate, Reuters reported.

Newsweek contacted the Erie County Republican Party and Trump campaign for comment via email.

Republicans are counting on Trump's visits to Erie County—five over three presidential campaigns, including two this election cycle—winning over voters in Erie County. At those events, organizers have also been able to register voters and collect contact information.

Trump and Harris "have campaigned here in person in the past month because Erie County is so closely contested, and the candidate who wins here is likely to win the state and nationwide," Robert Speel, a political science professor at Penn State Behrend in Erie, told Newsweek.

Speel said his students in past presidential elections "have provided a fairly accurate measure of national political attitudes and have generally favored whichever candidate was going to win."

It was clear at the start of the semester that many of his female students preferred Harris while his male students "have made increasingly negative comments about Trump" in recent weeks, Speel said.

"I think that now that Harris has made a campaign visit to Erie, she is the favorite to win the county," he said. "But because most voters here probably won't vote until Election Day, there is [still time] for that situation to change."