Only about 20 people rallied Saturday in Newport for Donald Trump’s reelection, but Republican leaders in the Northeast Kingdom cite grassroots support as a reason for optimism that the president will do well there on Election Day.
Essex County, the least populated county in the Kingdom, was the only Vermont county that favored Trump in 2016. GOP officials believe he’ll retain Essex, and they hope for gains in Caledonia and Orleans counties, carried four years ago by Democrat Hillary Clinton. Clinton beat Trump in Orleans County by fewer than 30 votes.
“I have seen a big increase in Trump support,” said Chet Greenwood, GOP committee chair in Orleans County. “I’ve had people come to events and call me out of the blue who’ve never voted before, and this year they’re going to vote for Trump.”
The Kingdom is considered more conservative than most of Vermont, but it isn’t exactly Trump country. Clinton won more total votes in the three counties last election.
But Trump performed better than he did elsewhere in the state, according to official state results. He won 1,506 votes in Essex to Clinton’s 1,019. He lost Orleans, 5,185 to 5,159. And in Caledonia, Clinton won 6,445 to 5,534.
Trump ended up with about 42% of the vote in the Kingdom’s counties, compared to about 30% statewide.
In 2016, Republicans attributed Trump’s greater success in the rural area to a desire for economic change. The Kingdom is the state’s poorest region — the result of manufacturing losses and population flight — and historically has had high unemployment rates and low income levels.
Party officials like Greenwood think those issues still exist.
“We’re seeing more shrinkage in our workforce because people are leaving or youth are leaving,” said Rick Cochran, chair of the Caledonia County Republican Committee. “People are now saying this is the year to try to stand up and stop the bleeding.”
Cochran, who also chairs the statewide Trump reelection campaign, believes some Kingdom voters are drawn by the president’s talk of bringing back manufacturing jobs.
He and Greenwood cited an uptick in rallies and attendees as indicators that Trump’s local support may be on the rise.
“Our state leadership is obviously not supportive of the president,” Cochran said, referring to Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s history of criticizing Trump. “So everything we do is organic with our supporters. I have to say, I am so ecstatic — around the state, there are so many parades.”
Events were held over the weekend, including a motor rally Saturday that began in Derby and traveled to Newport. There, fewer than two dozen supporters stood outside the state building downtown and hoisted Trump 2020 flags in the brisk afternoon air.
Drivers passing by honked support and derision, in about equal parts, and the event stayed low key.
Greenwood thinks increased Trump support is fueled in part by fear over protests and riots that have gripped the nation in recent months.
“They’re seeing what’s happening in some of these cities, and they think it’s absurd that we don’t try and do something about it,” he said.
He listed the recent appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court as another draw for some voters.
Both party chairs also pointed to increased frustration with Democratic policymaking in Montpelier as a driver for Trump support. They believe the recently enacted Global Warming Solutions Act, H.688, will hamper rural communities.
“Every time the Legislature passes something that’s going to cost them money, they get a little scared,” said Greenwood, who will be voting for Trump a second time, even though he dislikes the president’s rhetoric on Twitter.
He thinks Trump might flip Orleans County this year. “There seems to be a lot of activity here,” the Derby resident said. “You don’t see visible support for Biden in the area. … You see a lot more for Trump.”
Greenwood said Trump can get people excited and sticks to his word.
“He’s not the typical guy that goes to Washington and makes 100 promises and does none of them,” he said.
He and Cochran believe Essex County will remain red this year. So does Kenneth Copp, who until last year had been the GOP’s county chair for about two decades.
“This county always had been pretty much Republican, strong Republican,” Copp said.
He believes most of Trump’s 2016 voters in the county will stick with him because “they realize what the Democrats are doing … the stuff they’ve come up with, like that goddamn impeachment,” which he found unfair.
However, he thinks county support for the GOP may be weaker than in past years. He said six to eight towns there once had Republican committees, but when he resigned over communication problems with the state party, he said only two towns in the county still had local party committees.
“It’s gotten real bad in the last couple years,” Copp said.
Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, also thinks Trump will fare better in the Kingdom than in 2016.
“There seems to be a very large contingent of Trump supporters who have been making a lot of publicity about their support,” said Benning, the Senate minority leader.
He said he’s seen more Trump signs in the area than he saw in 2016, and believes the president will again win Essex County.
Could Trump flip Orleans County? “That’s a fair bet,” Benning said.
The state senator believes there will be higher turnout for Trump in the area this year because ballots were sent to every resident — a pandemic-driven precaution.
“There is a very large group of people out there who have not been voting for many years,” he said. “What we don’t know is, who do they represent?”
In the Kingdom, he believes, they represent conservatives more than liberals or progressives.
“I’m looking around in my neck of the woods, and I’ve known for years that many Republicans haven’t voted,” he said.
The rest of Vermont may see a blue wave of Democratic support, “but I don’t see that same wave hitting here,” he said.
What will drive votes this election? Benning said he thinks people are so polarized that their prime motivation is to vote against the candidate they dislike — rather than enthusiastically for a candidate.
Rep. Sam Young, D-Glover, agrees with Benning’s prediction — reluctantly.
He thinks Trump will retain Essex County and take Orleans County, part of which falls in his district — “even though Orleans County was really close (and) I wanna have faith in my neighbors and say that Biden’s going to win.”
Young is not seeking reelection to his Orleans-Caledonia House seat.
Like Benning, Young predicted mail-in ballots will lean Republican in the area.
What’s the draw for those voters?
“I think there’s a thing that says, ‘(Expletive) this system, the system never helped me and therefore I vote to (expletive) the system,’” he said. “I think that’s what it is. The international standing of the United States or military security doesn’t matter.”
Martha Allen, a Democratic candidate for the Essex-Caledonia-Orleans House seat and chair of the Essex County Democratic Committee, said the presidential race in the area is a “tough read.”
“It’s really hard to tell,” Allen said. “We still have plenty of Trump signs out there. I think that anybody who was in his base is probably still there in our county.”
Her opponent, incumbent Rep. Paul Lefebvre, R-Newark, did not return calls for comment.
Allen anticipates higher turnout this year — spurred by statewide mail-in voting during the Covid-19 pandemic — and wonders how that will affect the presidential race.
“I think people are frustrated with what we’ve had for the last three-and-a-half years,” she said.
The pandemic has made it more difficult to get a sense of how voters might swing, she said. But in Vermont’s sparsely populated northeasternmost county, that’s the norm.
“In this area, I think people kind of keep their politics to themselves,” the Canaan resident said. “We just don’t talk about it a whole lot. People respect each others’ political preferences, but that is not in the forefront of their conversations.”
Staff photographer Glenn Russell contributed reporting.
