Some Trump rallygoers in Harrisburg say they worry about campaign rhetoric, election security

• By Jaxon White/LNP | LancasterOnline

November 5 will be the first presidential election that 18-year-old York County resident Nate Mitchell will be able to cast a ballot in.

On Wednesday, he stood in line outside the New Holland Arena in Harrisburg with thousands of Donald Trump supporters in 90-degree heat to attend the former president’s first rally in Pennsylvania since the assassination attempt against him earlier this month across the state in Butler.

Mitchell said this was the third Trump rally he’d attended and that he’ll probably vote for Trump come November.

But Mitchell said there’s “progress to be made” by Trump when it comes to appealing to young, independent voters. He said Trump’s best bet would be to stick to his post-Butler calls for politicians from both parties to calm their campaign rhetoric.

But the signs, the speakers and even some of the other attendees waiting to hear from Trump didn’t seem to echo that sentiment. A large digital screen overlooking the crowd displayed a more confrontational message, “MAGA Never Surrender.”

And several of the event’s speakers — including Congressman Lloyd Smucker and Senate hopeful Dave McCormick — attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, the all-but-assured Democratic presidential nominee, characterizing her and her party as a danger to the country’s future.

2020 as touchstone

Some attendees told LNP | LancasterOnline they’re worried about the security of this year’s election, citing unfounded concerns perpetuated by Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Mitchell said the Republican Party’s inability to accept the last election’s result is also hurting its candidates when it comes to appealing to younger swing voters.

Leola resident Amdriy Sholka disagreed. He said 2020’s results were still at the top of his mind this election. He wore a blue hat with “Trump Won” embroidered on the front in white letters.

Sholka, who immigrated to the United States from Ukraine more than two decades ago, said his friends from Ukraine doubt Trump can keep his promise to end the country’s war with Russia while he’s in office. “They think he’s lying.”

Still, Sholka said he thinks Trump will do better as president than Harris.

The veepstakes

Smucker, Lancaster County’s four-term Republican in Congress, was one of several warm up speakers on Wednesday afternoon and served up some red meat for the crowd about Harris.

“She campaigned on banning fracking. She campaigned on packing the courts. She served as the border czar and let millions and millions of illegal immigrants come into the country,” he said, before asking the crowd, “Do we want a radical liberal like Kamala Harris running our country?”

The crowd yelled “No!” in response.

“And by the way, do we want Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro in the White House?”

Again, the crowd yelled “No!”

Smucker then went on to poke fun at Shapiro’s frequent use of the phrase “get s*** done,” saying: “I don’t know that he’s done diddly squat.”

Shapiro, Smucker said, “is distracted by the national spotlight and he’s left Pennsylvanians behind.”

As for Trump’s running mate, most of the people who spoke to LNP | LancasterOnline reporters as they waited for the rally to begin said they were excited about Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Glenn Kauffman, of Leola, said he hasn’t read Vance’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” but that he’s read a plot synopsis. He said he liked what he read.

Kauffman was less enthused about the ongoing speculation about who Harris could choose as a running mate. Not even the prospect of Shapiro — who is said to be on Harris’s shortlist — would swing Kauffman.

“I think she could choose Jesus and she’d still lose,” Kauffman said.

The Harris campaign has scheduled an event in Philadelphia on Tuesday where she’s expected to introduce her running mate, as reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

On his way into the arena Wednesday afternoon, state Sen. Scott Martin, a Republican from Martic Township, said he isn’t convinced Shapiro has been picked.

“I’m sure that they’re making a decision based on where they think it could have the biggest positive impact for them in a swing state that really matters,” Martin said.

Republican state Sen. Chris Gebhard, whose district includes a northern sliver of Lancaster County, said Shapiro wouldn’t hurt Harris’s chances of winning Pennsylvania.

“You have built-in name recognition. You have relationships that he’s built up over the many years,” Gebhard said.

Lancaster County voices

During his speech Trump pointed out several Republican officials seated toward the front of the rally crowd who have supported him in recent years, including Smucker and Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons.

Two non-politicians from Lancaster County also got speaking spots at the rally ahead of Trump’s appearance.

Tiffany Hall, a self-described single mother of four young kids, blasted the Biden administration’s “disastrous liberal policies” for leaving the working class behind.

Hall, a school paraprofessional from Columbia, attacked Democrats’ education policies. “Biden and Kamala Harris feel the government knows better than parents. Being an educator and a parent, I strongly disagree,” she said.

Last year, Hall ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the board of the Columbia Borough School District.

Another speaker, Philip Habegger, an employee of Integrous Fences and Decks in Gap, used his remarks to say Kamala Harris would pursue “even worse far left and radical policies” if she’s elected.

Describing himself as a product of a traditional Amish family, Habegger said Democrats like Harris want to take away parents’ rights and warned that could mean more children deciding to get “life altering surgeries like gender transition,” which he called “gender insanity.”

Habegger said he’s a “proud Trump Force 47 team captain,” a role he said allows him to have a big impact on the campaign even by volunteering only a little bit of time.

He urged others to sign up for that role “to help us save America.”