ERIE, Pa. — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump deployed their running mates to a Rust Belt bellwether county to make their case to swing voters in a critical battleground state. But was anyone swung? History shows Erie County picks presidents — it went for Barack Obama twice, Trump in 2016, then Biden in 2020.
Sen. J.D.
Vance made his pitch there for the Trump ticket at the end of August, and voters said his story of growing up in a left-behind Ohio town resonated with them. Then Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made his Erie working-class overtures last week for the Democratic ticket.
“I’m on the fence on both candidates,” Vince Palermo, a 45-year-old Millcreek Township small-business owner, told The Post at a gas station across the street from where Walz’s “New Way Forward” jet landed just moments before. Filling up his tank, Palermo noted that under Trump’s administration, “we didn’t have these price gouges.” Now “everything goes up.
” Palermo, formerly on the Erie County Democrats’ board, registered as a Republican in 2020 and voted for Trump “to see what an outsider could do.” But in 2024, he’s struggling to support Trump and believes his attacks on judges have “made a mockery” of the criminal-justice system: The ex-prez “just doesn’t care.” Still, Palermo admitted it was “tough” to say if he could be swayed toward Harris.
“I don’t think she has enough experience,” he said — unlike Hillary Clinto.