Pennsylvania's Amish are a key, yet hesitant voting bloc; pressing issues may benefit Trump, some say
Pennsylvania’s election is likely to go down to the wire Tuesday, meaning support from the commonwealth’s sizable, yet traditionally private Amish community might just make a difference.
The Amish-Mennonite community has long been a reliably conservative group, given its devout faith, humility and reluctance to engage with aspects of contemporary societal norms such as driving cars and using cellphones.
Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., the first Amish-born member of Congress, said he's seeing a real change lately.
"You have a minority of the Amish who are now farming and agricultural. They ran out of land in Lancaster County a long time ago. So, there's a new generation of Amish who are business owners," he said.
"So, they're becoming much more engaged politically than their parents were."
A report from Elizabethtown College estimated 90,000 Amish live in Pennsylvania and 84,000 live in Ohio, in addition to sizeable populations in Indiana, Wisconsin, New York and Missouri.
Smucker said there were 1,500-2,000 new voter registrants in his district who are Amish, adding he expects thousands more to cast ballots this cycle.
Two former presidents — George W. Bush and Donald Trump — actively canvassed the community, which by and large doesn’t vote due to customs surrounding privacy.
Bush visited Smoketown during the 2004 campaign, meeting with Amish leaders without photographers out of respect of religious customs.
Excepting Democrat James Buchanan, a Greencastle native who maintained a residence in the city of Lancaster, Bush was the first president since George Washington to visit at least twice during his term.
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"We hate that abortion issue," a farmer named Sam Stoltzfus told The Associated Press during Bush’s visit. "You could hold up a dead mouse with a sign ‘I love Bush,' and we’d still probably think twice about stomping that mouse underfoot."
In contrast to Bush’s quiet visit, Trump held a raucous 2016 rally in Manheim. Men in traditional Amish garb were seen seated throughout the venue, cheering the mogul’s pitch and critiques of Hillary Clinton.
Of the criticism that Trump’s New York bombast isn’t a fit for humble Lancaster, Smucker said many Amish "love" Trump for his small-government platform.
With faith at the core of Amish life, they also appreciate Trump’s own focus on religious liberty. That focus, he said, also mirrors many other conservatives’ priorities outside Lancaster.
Smucker said while Bush and Trump have had most of the Amish attention, the Amish were very politically active in the 1950s when compulsory age-based education was an issue for youth who often returned to farming.
Today, Trump signs sit on some farms and occasionally on a horse and buggy clip-clopping down Old Philly Pike in Bird-in-Hand.
Many Fridays, Republican activist Scott Presler registered voters at the Green Dragon Farmers Market in Ephrata, where he told Fox News Digital the Amish he’s interacted with have been very fervent in their support of Trump.
In a tweet, Presler also pointed to Democratic officials who investigated Amish farmer Amos Miller over his raw milk sales. The case drew national attention from the likes of Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who called the litigation "shameful."
Donald Trump Jr. also lambasted a raid on Miller’s property, saying he "can’t be the only person sick of this s---."
Asked whether the government’s run-ins with Miller inspired new political enthusiasm, Smucker said other dairymen have found ways to comply with the law, but the intrusion into Miller’s business was not well taken.
"Yes, Amos Miller was a good case of that. But there are plenty of others that the Amish can point to as well," he said.
The Amish first arrived from Germany in the 18th century, when many Germans landed in Philadelphia and initiated a diaspora throughout Pennsylvania.
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The Amish headed west toward Lancaster, while other "Pennsilfaanisch" headed northward to the Lehigh Valley, settling in places with ethnic names like Hamburg, Heidelberg, Neffs and Seisholtzville.
Today, Lancaster is a little less quiet than it's traditionally been, with an explosion in tourism and new residents who are "English," as the Amish refer to those outside their sect, since the turn of the century.
Smucker recounted being born the tenth of 12 in an Old Order family, the stricter of the sect, who wear plainclothes, speak "Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch" and drive buggies.
He suggested his own story illustrates how Amish values mesh well with conservative principles and those forwarded by Trump.
After completing Amish schooling, which ends around the ninth grade, Smucker took a nighttime job hanging drywall to fund private Christian school tuition to finish his studies.
"That was the deal," he said of his time at Lancaster Mennonite School.
He later purchased a fledgling business from a sibling for $1,000 and developed it into a regional leader in construction and commercial contracting.
"I talk about that as what we think of as the American dream," he said.
"It doesn't matter where you start. You know, if you work hard … play by the rules, you're going to have a really great chance of getting ahead in this country of ours.
"It's the idea of strong individual responsibility, a strong family unit and then a strong local community or local church. And when you have all of that in place, you don't need a big government. And that's exactly how the Amish look at that."
Fox News Digital also reached out to the Lancaster County Democratic Committee for comment.