BLAKESLEE, Pa. — The woman with pink-tinged hair and the guy with an orange beanie came tentatively to their door. They are quiet Harris voters in these mountain roads of Pennsylvania, and Michele Van Allen and Ramona McNees have come from New Jersey to find them.
Of course, being from Jersey, and still slightly pumped up from morning pickleball, Van Allen is not at all quiet. She coaxes the pair outside with her high-energy pitch — is she canvassing or ranting about a car that cut her off on the Turnpike, same basic energy — and they all bond over her enthusiasm.
In an area a neighbor referred to as “Trump alley,” this young couple was impressed, and happy, to find friendly people from New Jersey at their woodsy doorstep.
“I’ve been so freaking stressed,” the woman tells them.
“We all have, we all have,” Van Allen assures her. “It’s been a long haul.”
Like hundreds of others, Van Allen and McNees have concluded there’s no point in staying home in New Jersey, talking yourself blue in a blue state, with the outcome of next week’s election, and its 14 Electoral College votes, seemingly predetermined.
New Jersey is where Vice President Kamala Harris has touched down just one time: in Trenton, at the airport, whereupon she immediately reversed George Washington’s route and headed straight for Washington Crossing, Bucks County.
Former President Donald Trump last appeared at a public rally in Wildwood, back in May, and has attended fundraisers in the state. A couple of weeks after President Joe Biden dropped out as the candidate, Trump invited reporters to his Bedminster, N.J., golf course for a news conference.
Earlier this month, Gov. Phil Murphy held a fundraiser featuring second gentleman and Jersey native Doug Emhoff, whose parents still live in New Jersey. Bruce Springsteen used a Freehold diner as a backdrop for a Harris endorsement, but saved his local live appearance for Philadelphia.
It’s a peculiar plight this election season to be in New Jersey, with a bare-knuckle brawl across the Delaware River and, in South Jersey, all the same Philadelphia TV commercials.
The U.S. Senate race in Jersey features a big Democratic favorite: Rep. Andy Kim over Republican Curtis Bashaw. In deepest South Jersey, Republicans can take comfort in what looks to be a path to reelection by Rep. Jeff Van Drew over Democrat Joe Salerno.
There’s just one congressional race considered competitive: in North Jersey’s 7th District, where Democrat Sue Altman is trying to unseat Republican Tom Kean Jr.
That hasn’t stopped Jersey Republicans from flying the Trump flag, holding Trump Train events and rallies, and heading out of state for rallies, including, conveniently, to Madison Square Garden. Publicly, at least, they haven’t given up hope that New Jersey will shock the world and go red.
“Let’s win New Jersey for the first time since 1988!” reads a flier for a recent “Too Big to Rig” event in Wenonah that’s also dubbed “Project 14,” an apparent reference to New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes.
Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, who narrowly lost the governor’s race to Murphy in 2021, appeared in the 4 a.m. hour on Fox and Friends on Tuesday and predicted that Trump would win New Jersey, despite a million-voter advantage in Democratic registration.
“New Jersey is not a deep-blue state,” Ciattarelli said. “We can win here.”
“It’s a bold statement, Jack,” host Todd Piro replied.
An Eagleton Institute of Politics poll released Wednesday found 55% of the state’s voters favoring Harris compared with 35% for Trump.
That hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of MAGA loyalists like Matthew Diullio-Jusino of Williamstown who believe Democrats in New Jersey might be caught looking. “All the Democrats are not even here,” he said. “They’re leaving it wide open. As you recall, Hillary did something similar in Wisconsin and Michigan.”
Purpose in the Poconos
New Jersey Democrats, though, are finding their purpose in Pennsylvania, mostly through knocking on doors. They’re driving themselves over and back, sometimes staying for a few days or a month, or boarding multiple buses, most recently arranged by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone.
“To me, Trump is a clear and present danger to my country,” said Ben Forest of Red Bank. “If I want to do anything to serve my country, this is the time.”
Forest has been coming to Pennsylvania several times a week. He would prefer to be canvassing out of New Jersey, or that the national vote was a popular vote, not an electoral one, and his vote would matter as much as those in his neighboring state.
But he says he has found deep meaning in Pennsylvania, with its ties to New Jersey.
“I went over to the old steel mill in Bethlehem,” Forest said. “I’ve been on the Battleship New Jersey. The steel used to build that was from Bethlehem. Bethlehem Steel is a part of our history. It’s kind of powerful to see that.”
Uyen Khuong, the founder of Action Together New Jersey, has relocated to the commonwealth for a month to oversee canvassing efforts. She is working out of a six-bedroom ski chalet loaned by a friend, and has coordinated upward of 800 door-knockers.
“We house volunteers from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, California, and New Jersey of course,” she said. “If you’re here to do the work, we all stay here. We have dinners together. I have made pho here three times.”
They launch most weekends out of the basement of the Tandoor Palace a few miles from the Camelback Ski Resort.
“Democracy happens in the basement of a Tandoor Palace in Tannersville,” Khuong said.
In ‘Trump alley’
In Pennsylvania, McNees and Van Allen started down some bumpy dirt roads, encountered a few No Trespassing signs. One stop landed them in front of an American flag with “2nd Amendment 1791″ in the middle of a circle of stars and a “One Nation Under God” flag with images of a field of crucifixes. Two dogs eyed them from down the driveway. They moved on.
Among the voters they met were a father with a transgender daughter, and a young grandmother who clasped hands with Van Allen as she delivered her Project 2025-in-a-minute talk.
“What is going to change for us is basically our way of life,” Van Allen said to the woman. “… Female rights. Women’s health care, that’s going to disappear. I have kids and grandkids, and I am not letting that happen. Do you have a plan to vote on Election Day? Do you know where your polling location is?”
“Yes, I do. I’m going to be at the firehouse.”
“OK. I thank you so much for your time.”
McNees, a licensed nurse from Eatontown, Monmouth County, who is Black, said she was surprised and gratified to find multiple people of color answering doors in Pennsylvania’s Monroe County.
One woman told them: “Neighbors are scared of each other. That’s not cool.”
“I felt the urge to come here,” said McNees. “I was a little nervous. But it has been quite diverse. They say, ‘Thank you for coming to Trump country.’”
In Blakeslee, graphic designer Christopher English told the two canvassers he’d finally received his mail-in ballot. “It’s going to be tight,” he said. “You’ve been down that way? It’s Trump alley.”
“Oh, I know, I’ve been here for three weeks,” Van Allen said. “But there’s lots of people like you.”
Back in New Jersey, both Republicans and Democrats look to run up the score. By midweek, more than 1.1 million voters had voted early in person or by mail, 15% of the total electorate, according to Associated Press election researcher Ryan Dubicki.
“Do I really think we’re going to win?” said Diullio-Jusino, the Republican who went with his mom to Trump’s MSG rally Sunday and brushed off the racist jokes, despite being half-Puerto Rican. (They didn’t even land well in person, he said.) “I wouldn’t bank the whole race to 270 on New Jersey. Do I think we’ll help give Trump the popular vote this year? Yes, I do.”
Republicans were taking heart in having a slight edge in early in-person voting (Elon Musk even posted on X about it), though Democrats were dominating the mail-in vote. Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way said more New Jersey residents voted on the first day of early voting than in the entire early voting period of 2023.
That enthusiasm might still be no match for Pennsylvania, where Van Allen recalled meeting an older woman who opened the door, took one look at her, and said: “Don’t say a word.” She’ll be voting for Harris, she said, “if I have to crawl on my hands and knees.”
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