"You look great for 81," she said to John, a registered Democrat, after knocking on his door as a US flag fluttered nearby. She asked if he would back Harris in November's knife-edge election. "I'm not saying yes, I'm not saying no," said John, a resident of Altoona in remote west Pennsylvania that was once a thriving railway hub, but is now a stronghold for Trump's far-right MAGA, or Make America Great Again, movement.
"That's saying he's voting Trump without saying he's voting Trump. The legendary Altoona politeness," said Pacifico as she checked her handheld database of voters. Votes in rural areas like Altoona, between Pennsylvania's urban heartlands in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, will be vital to the Democrats' chances of winning Pennsylvania -- the swing state with the most electoral college votes.
But persuading undecided voters outside the state's cities is an uphill challenge, says Pacifico, a slight woman in her 60s who retired from a career in finance before returning to her native Altoona. Other voters who Pacifico called on as she toured a neat suburb of mostly standalone houses were less polite. "I know who I am voting for.
Now get off of my property," shouted one woman who was listed as an independent on Pacifico's sophisticated map-based canvassing app. In a small office in downtown Altoona, where a wall of Harris campaign posters had been fashioned into a US flag, Gillian Kratzer honed her party's rural battle plan, surrounded by maps of the area and door-kn.