Trump and Kamala Are Neck and Neck in Battleground States. Could The Amish Be The Deciding Vote?

With Election Day less than 24 hours away, polls say that it is a toss up between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. But Republicans are making one final effort to get an unexpected group on their side: the Amish.

Photos of a billboard erected in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, were shared to social media Monday morning. The billboard reads, "Hard Work = YES, Illegal Freebies = NO. Amish for Trump."

The day prior, a clip of an interview with an Amish man went viral after he said he planned on voting for Donald Trump.

"So are the Amish going to be coming out to vote this year?" the interviewer asked the man.

"Some of them, yeah," he responded. The man went on to add, "With Trump, the Amish, I would say, had more freedom. And with the Biden administration, it started getting tighter and tighter."

The potential of the Amish vote to swing the state's electoral votes took users by storm. However, while the Amish vote could still be powerful, experts are not sure if it has the power to swing the election.

Steven Nolt, a professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College, told Lancaster Online that eligible Amish voters total at less than 45,000 in Pennsylvania. Only about 2,900 out of 18,000 eligible Amish voters cast their ballot in 2020.

While Biden previously won Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes, many Republicans still view the Amish vote as a possible boost this election as more than 90% of Amish voters are registered as Republicans.

About 90,000 Amish are estimated to live in Pennsylvania, and another 84,000 in Ohio, according to a report by Elizabethtown College. There are also large Amish communities in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and New York.