DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania — Trump supporters turned out in droves in one of Pennsylvania’s bellwether counties on Friday in the final hours of court-ordered early voting.
Republicans far outnumbered Democrats in long lines at the Bucks County Administration Building in Doylestown, one of three locations where voters could still access early mail-in voting services. The turnout suggests Republicans are heeding calls to cast their ballots before Election Day.
According to local officials of both parties, 70% or more of those requesting and then returning their mail ballots in person, a process known as on-demand absentee voting, have been Trump supporters. The officials outside the facility on Friday in some cases gave estimates as high as 80% or 90%.
Those figures are anecdotal and do not include voters who decided to vote through the mail, an option that Democrats tend to utilize more heavily. But the turnout is the latest warning sign for Democrats that Republicans are eroding their traditional advantage in the early vote.
“It’s hugely more Trump,” Pat Poprik, chairwoman of the Bucks County Republican Party, said of the lines. “Every day has been this way.”
The lopsided distribution was plainly apparent as lines grew outside the facility for the final day of on-demand mail balloting. Some of the voters donned MAGA hats, while a large percentage put on the “Team Trump” stickers being handed out by Republican officials outside the building.
Few people wore the Harris-Walz stickers being offered, though both parties had an equal presence in front of the voting facility.
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The long lines in Bucks County, a Philadelphia suburb, were the source of controversy earlier this week. The Trump campaign sued the government after police told voters they had to leave their line before the 5 p.m. cutoff, an order that ran counter to state election code.
Government officials say the mistaken guidance was quickly corrected. Since then, a judge has ruled in the Trump campaign’s favor, extending the on-demand balloting period from Tuesday to Friday.
But the episode has been cited by the former president and his allies in the Republican National Committee to sow doubts about the integrity of elections in Pennsylvania, a must-win swing state.
Poprik dismissed the idea that county officials were suppressing the vote as the Trump campaign has claimed. Instead, she described overwhelmed election officials in Bucks County and elsewhere who did not have the manpower or equipment to process votes in a timely fashion.
“What’s happened has been a logistical nightmare. They didn’t plan enough, but it wasn’t intentional suppression, because we’re all being suppressed, not just us,” she said. “The Democrats are having the same problem.”
On Friday, the line in Doylestown died out in the final minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline, with one voter sprinting into the building to make the cutoff. But lines wrapped around the property toward the middle of the day, keeping voters there for hours.
One resident in neighboring Montgomery County told the Washington Examiner earlier in the week that voting took more than two hours, driven in part by staff confusion over the proper ballot for him to fill out.
“The process there, it was terrible. The people were very nice and trying to be helpful, but they just didn’t have the resources necessary to handle the crowds, long lines,” said Eugene Scholl, a retired airline pilot from Montgomeryville.
The long lines are due, in part, to a relatively new way to cast ballots in Pennsylvania enacted in 2019. Under state law, voters can go to a designated election facility, request a mail ballot, and submit it on the spot.
The law gave Pennsylvania voters something akin to early voting, but the process is cumbersome and can take 12 minutes per ballot.
Republicans are encouraged by the turnout in Bucks, a purple county that narrowly voted for President Joe Biden and, before that, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. If they can “bank” enough ballots, they have less ground to make up on Election Day.
Voter registrations this cycle have also given them reason for cautious optimism. In July, the number of Republicans in Bucks County eclipsed registered Democrats.
But Democrats have found bright spots of their own in the early voting data. Statewide, former President Donald Trump is trailing Vice President Kamala Harris with seniors despite voter registrations being about even between the two parties for that demographic.
Trump has sown doubts about early voting, claiming without proof massive fraud in his 2020 race due to mail-in balloting. He even views extended early voting periods with suspicion.
However, Trump and his Republican allies have rethought their strategy for 2024, urging supporters at rallies and in campaign literature to cast their ballot before Election Day.
In interviews with the Washington Examiner, Trump supporters expressed suspicion about absentee ballots, fearing their vote won’t count if they drop it in the mail. Still, the heavy turnout in Bucks represents a middle ground for those voters given they can physically place their ballot in the drop box at an election facility.
“I’m only one vote, and I want to make sure my vote is as stable or secure as possible,” said Albert Leonberger III, 56. “If it is or not, I don’t know. Once I put this in the mailbox, it’s out of my hands.”
Connor O’Hanlon, chairman of the Doylestown Democratic Party, welcomed the turnout, calling expanded ballot access a good thing whether the voter is a Democrat or not.
“More people voting, that’s a good thing to me,” he said.
But the sight of so many engaged Trump supporters has some Democrats on edge. Jennifer Bonfrisco, a lawyer from Newtown, described her blood pressure spiking after getting in line.
“I mean, this election is so close, and standing in this line surrounded by Trump people and women that are Trump people, is frightening,” she said.
“I’m very upset, very very upset,” she added. “I’m trying to talk to my friends that have all been canvassing for Kamala for the last month and a half. And they’re all like, ‘We got it. We got it.’ Yeah, I don’t know that we got it.”
Neither party is leaving anything to chance as polls show a toss-up race in Pennsylvania. Trump leads by less than a point on average, according to RealClearPolitics.
On Wednesday, Democrats sued Erie County, another bellwether, over a delay in voters receiving their mail-in ballots. The Philadelphia district attorney has also sued X CEO Elon Musk and his Trump-supporting super PAC over a $1 million-a-day cash giveaway he says violates the state’s lottery laws.
Republicans have been equally aggressive in the courts. They unsuccessfully asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bar voters from filling out provisional ballots if their original mail ballot had mistakes.
But their efforts have taken on a far more conspiratorial tone, as Trump claims mass cheating has already tainted the race.
Earlier this week, election workers in Lancaster and York counties identified several thousand voter applications that appeared to be fraudulent. Meanwhile, other claims of fraud have been debunked. In one video shared 7 million times on X, a user insinuated illegal ballot dumping by a man who turned out to be a postman legally delivering votes in Northampton.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), the former attorney general of the state, told reporters in Pittsburgh that voters should be reassured, not worried, since the possibly fraudulent applications were caught.
“That’s exactly how the system is supposed to work so that only legal, eligible voters are able to cast their ballots at the end of the day,” he said on Friday.
In Bucks County, O’Hanlan said Republicans want to “talk out of both sides of their mouth,” alleging voter suppression while contesting absentee ballots missing a date or the required “secrecy” envelope.
But Leigh Vlasblom, a member of the Bucks County GOP executive board, defended the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against Bucks as something that can ease fears of voter fraud.
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“I mean, in this kind of environment, people are already anxious, so anything that’s not normal is going to throw them,” said Vlasblom.
“I think it was good that the Trump campaign filed a suit and that they were given the three additional days because I think it showed that things are going to happen, whether it was intentional or not, but there’ll be some things in place that will fix it,” she added. “And the judge ruling is an example of that.”
Gabrielle Etzel contributed to this report.
