View from western Pennsylvania [View all]

As many DUers know, Harris/Walz bus tour made a stop in Rochester, a small town in Beaver County. It's rare for candidates running for national office to make stops here. We are generally an R voting county with plenty of discouraged Dems. Our county Dem party tries, but lacks youthful energy. But the bus stop by the Harris campaign seems to have changed that and created an excitement that Dems here haven't had for a long time.

Yesterday I went down to see if they had yard signs. I arrived a few minutes before the office opened and was surprised to enter with 3 or 4 other people who'd also been waiting in their cars for the door to open. Two of the people were there for volunteer training. I overheard one of them state they were there because of Michelle Obama's call to "do something". When I signed in, noticed "yard signs" was the reason for the visit for the 8-10 people who were signed above me.

They had yard signs for every state and local candidate (we are down to just 1 Dem state house rep in the county), but Dems have a good candidate for an open state house seat and a challenger to the incumbent R state senator. They had window placards for Harris/Walz, but no yard signs yet. I got the signs I wanted and also the placards for Harris/Walz. The office was expecting a supplemental shipment of yard signs for Sen Casey. I will check back for the Harris yard signs.

The head of the office seemed a bit caught off guard by the flurry of activity as soon as the doors opened.

Also learned that the head of the county Rs had called for Trumpers to come out and protest Harris' visit. The turnout was about 4 or 5 pick up trucks, a couple of people holding a "Trump won" flag and a small contingent of Trumpers, although I didn't see them to estimate a count, on the corner opposite where Harris was. Considering there was a call to action by the county GOP, the protest was small.

I doubt Harris will win my county, but hopefully we'll cut into Trump's margin.