How Pa. Republicans are doing damage control after Trump’s conviction

For former President Donald Trump’s most fervent Pennsylvania supporters, Thursday’s guilty verdict does little to change their faith.

If anything, it motivates them.

“I feel exactly the way I did when he was indicted. This is a witch hunt,” said Dominic Chickilly, 33, a Trump supporter from Schuylkill County. “They’re doing everything they can to stop him and it’s absolutely just fired me up more.”

That energy was already evident Friday in Doylestown, where the GOP Bucks County office is headquartered.

“Just a minute ago, a couple walked into the office and asked how they can help,” Pat Poprik, chair of the county’s Republican committee, said. “‘What can we do?’ they asked. ‘This verdict can ruin our country.’”

Poprik concluded, “If you politicize the courts, you create a travesty of justice, and you get a lot of people up off their couches to help.”

Now all eyes are on how the verdict motivates — or dampens — support for Trump in places like purple Bucks County, one of the swing counties that will be pivotal to winning Pennsylvania in November. President Joe Biden won Bucks in 2020 but the county voted Republican down ballot that year. Hillary Clinton won the county in 2016, but only by about 4,000 votes over Trump.

One guilty verdict later, Republicans worry Trump’s conviction could play out against them in the bellwether county and others like it.

“We will do everything we can to get out in the community and let people know that what they need to be focused on is Trump’s policies,” Erie County GOP chair Tom Eddy said. Erie County is one of three swing counties in Pennsylvania that voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, and then Trump in 2016. Biden won it in 2020, but it remains a key battleground.

“For the next five months, all you’ll hear is, ‘He is a felon,’” Eddy said. “The Democrats have done a pretty good job of trying to demonize Trump. Now we have to talk to people and say, ‘Don’t listen — look at what he’s done.’”

Biden won Pennsylvania by a little more than one percentage point in 2020. Trump won it by just under a percentage point in 2016. Most polling of the state, which could be key to electing the next president, shows Trump narrowly leading.

So far, the two campaign footprints have been drastically different. Biden has blanketed the state with 24 field offices, with a heavy concentration in Philadelphia and its suburbs. Trump has made far fewer trips, a result, in part, of the trial he was obligated to appear at four days a week.

But his campaign is already stepping up efforts in the state, announcing that its first campaign office will be opening in Philadelphia on Tuesday, according to RNC officials.

As the campaign moves forward, U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican who represents parts of Northeastern Pennsylvania and a cochair for Trump’s campaign, said the plan is to keep talking about issues — the border, the economy and crime. Meuser was at a campaign office opening in Wilkes Barre this week and said several are opening in coming weeks around the state. “We’re trying to keep overhead low and effectiveness high,” he said.

The former president boasted Friday that the conviction created a fundraising bump — needed cash for battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, as well as for offsetting legal fees.

Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley said in a statement Friday that more than 485,000 donors have contributed $34.8 million since the verdict in the New York “show trial” was announced last night.

He added, “The American people stand behind President Trump in the face of this unprecedented weaponization of the judicial system and we are laser-focused on investing these resources to get out the vote, protect the ballot, and reelect President Donald J. Trump.”

That Trump was found guilty on Thursday on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree won’t just bring in dollars — it’ll inspire voters to get to the polls, according to Arnaud Armstrong, the executive director of Win Again PAC, a Pennsylvania group working to persuade Republicans to embrace mail voting.

“In an environment where turnout is hugely important, I can see the verdict becoming a big asset for the Republican Party,” Armstrong said. “It confirms all the worst fears and gravest concerns about left-wing ideological creep into our institutions, like the courts.

“Republicans are most engaged when they see a gross injustice. It happened with [Supreme Court Justice] Brett Kavanaugh, when he was attacked in his confirmation hearing [in September 2018.] People got really upset, and it won elections for lots of Republicans in 2018 who otherwise would have lost.

“Well, the Trump verdict is Kavanaugh on steroids. The conviction kicks the hornets’ nest, and it will greatly increase activism.”

What Trump’s conviction is saying to Republicans is that personal liberty is at stake, said Jackie Kulback, GOP Committee Chair of Cambria County.

“If they can do that to a former president,” she said, “what’s going to stop them from coming after a common citizen?”

There is no evidence that Americans’ liberties are being threatened after a jury found Trump guilty of attempting to illegally influence the 2016 election by funneling a hush money payment to a porn actor. Nor is there evidence, as Trump himself has asserted, that the Biden administration orchestrated Trump’s prosecution to help the president get reelected.

Biden himself spoke out against Republicans’ reaction to the verdict Friday.

“It’s irresponsible for anyone to say this is rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” he said, speaking at the White House. “Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case, and it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens — 12 Americans. Twelve people like you.”

Already, conservative media is using the verdict to help the GOP discount the jury’s findings, said Matt Jordan, director of the Pennsylvania State University News Literacy Initiative, which helps students and citizens distinguish “reliable journalism” from “the noise that often overwhelms and divides us,” according to its website.

The idea is to feed the theory that there’s a “huge cult of left-wing conspiracy out there trying to victimize Trump” and, by association, all Republicans, Jordan said.

“It’s misinformation to show that any attack on the party’s leader is a sign that the entire system of justice in America is corrupt,” he added. “Everything is rigged.”

Trump himself emphasized that point, saying Thursday that the trial was a “disgrace.”

Al Smith, 67, a Nazareth carpenter, agreed in an interview Friday.

“At first, I was numb when I heard the verdict. Then I thought, ‘This is not how justice is done.’ So, I got energized to help Trump. And that’s how I’ll stay.”

Staff writer Nick Vadala contributed to this article.