Chris Cox from Bikers for Trump has spent this campaign cycle going door-to-door in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country to help boost voter turnout for Trump-endorsed candidates like Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz.
There are tens of thousands of Amish, Mennonites and other related sects, who are also known under the umbrella term Anabaptist, in Pennsylvania who have traditionally refrained from voting—and it’s those votes that Cox believes Republicans will need in order to win big on Tuesday.
“There are enough Amish in Pennsylvania and Ohio to change the whole political landscape,” he told Newsweek in a Friday interview.
Nearly half of the American Amish population resides in Ohio or Pennsylvania, a state where Republicans are hoping to defeat Democrats Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman in the governor and Senate race, respectively.
“For the past 2 months our Bikers have been in the heart of Amish Country, talking to members of a community both parties have ignored for decades,” Bikers for Trump said in a fundraising email.
Amish people don’t often participate in politics. According to Anabaptist World, only roughly 10 percent of Old Order Amish people vote in presidential elections. But the last two presidential elections have been decided by fewer than 100,000 votes in Pennsylvania, and so getting those conservative voters to the polls can be critical.
Cox was first introduced to the Amish community while campaigning for former President Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign. He had initially set out to develop a plan that would target voters impacted by the opioid crisis. In his research, Cox learned that counties with high Amish populations had low rates of opioid abuse, and as he dug further into statistics, he discovered that there are also low voter turnouts among those communities.
He decided to campaign in those areas, where he learned many residents supported Trump—they just weren’t casting ballots.
Although it took him some time to gain the trust of the Amish in rural Pennsylvania, Cox quickly became accepted into their communities, hosting buggy parades, staying at their homes when campaigning and putting on screenings of political debates to better inform Amish voters of their choices.
Six years into his campaign work, Cox received a call from Trump suggesting that he might want to introduce Pennsylvania’s Amish communities to Mastriano and Oz.
“I went up there and did a Bikers for Trump rally with Mastriano,” Cox said. “He spoke at a firehouse in Whitehorse, Pennsylvania.”
He said he typically doesn’t campaign for other political candidates aside from Trump, but recognized Mastriano took the time to understand the concerns of the Amish communities and was able to speak about scripture in a way that resonated with these voters. Plus, Cox contends that victories for Mastriano and Oz could bolster a 2024 run from Trump.
“I’m telling [the Amish] that if they like Donald Trump and they want him to run again, the best thing they could do for Donald Trump is to vote for the candidates and in these two states, Pennsylvania and Ohio, that he has endorsed—to give them the tools that he needs,” Cox said.
In the final weekend before Election Day, Cox will be hosting a screening of the controversial 2000 Mules documentary, trying to help Amish voters get a ride to the polls on Tuesday and maybe just get the community together for a softball game.
“I’m not there to persuade them or trying to change your mind. I’m there to give them information,” he said. “If they want to use this to register as a Democrat, they’re more than welcome. I just like to know what it was that made them think that that was the direction they wanted to go.”
