Republicans for Harris warn Pennsylvania voters about a second Trump term

The Kamala Harris campaign launched their Republicans for Harris initiative in Lancaster County on Wednesday, warning voters about the dangers of a second Donald Trump presidency. 

More than 100 Kamala Harris supporters packed the Barn at Stoner Commons in Lancaster County on Tuesday to help launch Republicans for Harris. 

Former Lancaster County Republican Party Chair Anne Womble and former Bucks County Republican Congressman Jim Greenwood, both of whom co-chair the Pennsylvania Republicans for Harris coalition, hosted the event. 

“I consider myself a Republican from the ‘before times,’” Womble said in an interview. “With the rise of Trump, early on, I became very outspoken here in Lancaster County. I saw it as a threat to Republican principles and Republican values. Unfortunately, the majority of the party went along with it and he was elected president.”

Lancaster County has become something of a staging area for the Harris campaign this cycle, with the hopes of cutting into Republican margins in Central Pennsylvania. 

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley received 20% of the primary vote in Lancaster County even though she dropped out of the race more than a month ahead of the Pennsylvania primary.  

Guest speakers for the event included Virginia Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, former Georgia Lieutenant Gov. Geoff Duncan and former Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh, and their message was simple when it comes to the dangers of Donald Trump. 

“He wants to be a dictator. He wants to be a king. He wants to imprison his political enemies,” Walsh said in an interview, referencing Trump’s comments on Monday that he would imprison Americans for criticizing the US Supreme Court’s six conservative justices.

Walsh, the once bombastic Tea Party member who voted for Trump in 2016, said he had a change of heart when he realized how dangerous Trump was.

“I woke up and realized what a horrible guy he was, and once I realized that, then I woke up and realized what a threat he was to this country and everything I believed in like the constitution and the rule of law,” Walsh said. 

“It took me a while to get there because like a lot of his voters, I felt like the system was broken and he was going to be the great disruptor. But then when I found out he’s just utterly full of bullsh*t, and he’s dangerous, I was gone.”

For Bill Coder, a Lancaster County resident, leaving the Republican Party wasn’t a hard decision. He stated in an interview that he joined the Republican Party when he turned 18 in 2003, but left when Trump incited a mob to storm the US Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. 

“I’ll tell you that having spent my life being a Republican, I know what the Republican party stands for,” Coder said.

“Donald Trump only found his way to the Republican party when he stumbled on birtherism against President Obama. And there are just so many things about him that do not stand for what I believe the Republican Party is about, what it should stand for and I could not vote for him.”