On a typical Monday at the Erie County Republican Party Headquarters, Tom Eddy gets “two, three, maybe four” people stopping by. That wasn’t the case this week.
“My wife was at our headquarters on Monday, and she said it was crazy, people coming in wanting stuff,” Eddy said.” I mean, we’ve always had people come in; we’ve never seen these numbers before of people coming in wanting signs, wanting T-shirts, wanting flags.”
It was the first morning the office was open following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. In Erie, and in other counties around northwestern Pennsylvania, the shooting was close to home — and Republicans are energized.
“It’s a sad thing to say that something like that would kind of galvanize people even more to try to get out and change the direction of the country with regard to Donald Trump,” Eddy said, speaking to NOTUS from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“But I think that’s what’s happening,” he said.
Pennsylvania is one of the — if not the — most important states in determining who wins the presidency in November. The state is central to President Joe Biden’s strategy for winning reelection, and his path without it is virtually impossible. The margins are so tight that small swings in energy in either direction can make a gigantic difference: Biden beat Trump in the state by .2% in 2020, and Trump won it by .7% in 2016.
Erie is a true swing county, one of 25 that went for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. (“Erie usually trends towards how Pennsylvania goes, as well as the nation,” Eddy said). It’s a county where every vote will make a difference, and after last weekend, local Republicans are “energized.”
“It’s not like people forget about it. I’m sure Trump won’t let people forget about it,” Eddy said.
Separate from Erie, almost all of northwestern Pennsylvania is ruby red, nowhere close to swing counties. But as three GOP county chairs in the region told NOTUS, the assassination attempt has emboldened the base to get publicly involved in the presidential race.
“We’re gonna hit every door in Butler County, we’re not taking that chance,” said county Chairman Jim Hulings.
Last Saturday marked Hulings’ 30th day as chairman. He was in the front row of the rally. When the shots went out and Trump went to the ground, he thought the former president was dead.
“Donald Trump put up his hand and showed us he was OK. And I’ll tell you, the emotion that went through people, including me, it was a revelation. It was like the greatest thing that ever happened in your life.”
Hulings said the Butler County GOP had been without a chairman for a year and a half before he took on the role. “The Butler County Republican committee was adrift, to say the least. And we’re picking up the pieces now,” he said.
He’s putting the group back together at a time like none other for the county. Hulings said Republicans in the county are ready to organize following the assassination attempt.
“The feeling here is, let’s get back to work, there are things to do,” he said.
He’s noticed a difference in the Trump campaign this cycle compared to 2020. Instead of talking with super voters who are already reliably coming out for Trump, grassroots efforts are now targeted at voters on the fence.
“They have a good, solid plan this time,” he said.
In Beaver County, just west of Butler on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, Roman Kozak spent Monday and Tuesday knocking on doors. He’s the county GOP chairman and is running for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Nearly everyone had the assassination attempt on their minds.
“At every single house, except for maybe a couple, that conversation came up,” Kozak said. “And as a committee, we are getting requests for signs and banners, and it’s been a significant uptick.”
Kozak said the majority of these Republicans would have gotten involved at some point closer to the election but feel it’s important to begin showing their support now.
“It was a tipping point that kind of set off the election season in a way that no one would have expected,” he said.
Going door-to-door, Kozak said he heard the same message repeatedly: “Everybody wants to do something.”
“People are just kind of, in a way, proud of him, the way that he stood up and kind of didn’t cower away. The country is just desperate for leadership, and I think that moment, symbolically, for a lot of people, was just like, ‘That’s my president. That’s the guy I want leading us.’”
But while people want to help and display their support for Trump in western Pennsylvania, Kozak said he has reservations about capitalizing on the tragedy that left one man dead and several injured.
“I don’t love the idea of using tragedy as a means to launch something politically. Rahm Emanuel said, ‘Don’t let a crisis go to waste,’ and I think that’s cold,” Kozak said.
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Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.