No, Amish voters in Pa. did not carry the election for Donald Trump

Despite widespread claims on social media from conservative activists, Amish voters cannot be credited with winning Pennsylvania for President-elect Donald Trump, according to vote returns.

While there looks to be marginal increase in the number of Amish people who voted this year, experts said they do not expect major shifts in Amish turnout this year, according to early analysis of vote returns in Lancaster County precincts with high Amish populations.

The large Amish community in Lancaster County and across the state — many of whom dress plainly, minimize their technology use, and keep to their insular, self-sufficient communities — has long been seen as an untapped voting bloc for Republicans.

Many of Pennsylvania’s Amish do not vote, with some who view it as in conflict with their religious beliefs of serving God’s kingdom by engaging with earthly government.

But that has been slowly changing in recent years, with the largest jump occurring four years ago, when Amish turnout more than doubled from 7% in 2016 to 17% in 2020 of the approximate 20,000 Amish people who are of voting age in Lancaster County, or about 3,400 votes.

Experts won’t know exactly how many Amish voted until final voter rolls are available, when academics will then make the painstaking process of comparing names, addresses and birthdays of voters with those in Amish church directories. The Amish experts, based out of Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, do not digitize or scan the directories, because Amish leaders oppose it.

“I do not expect to find a large jump in Amish voters,” said Steven Nolt, an Amish expert who runs the Young Center. “In 2020, the overall data suggested something different between 2016 and 2020. That’s not the case this time as we eyeball up 2020 and 2024.”

Republicans wanted to turn out even more Amish voters in Pennsylvania this year, in an election that was expected to be just as close as the last two presidential cycles. President-elect Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by more than 121,000 votes by increasing his vote share across the state, including in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, said America PAC, the political action committee he launched to boost Trump, organized rides to the polls for Amish, who often do not drive motor vehicles but are allowed to be passengers.

Billboards and mailers targeted the Amish community specifically to turn out to vote for Trump. One grassroots group held weekly voter registration drives at Amish markets in Lancaster and Mifflin Counties.

Philip Habegger, who grew up Amish in Kentucky as one of 11 children before leaving his community at age 27, said his family “would not have considered voting at all,” though they were informed and interested in politics. Habegger, now 31 and living in Lancaster, volunteered with the Trump campaign.

The Trump campaign never thought it would quadruple turnout like some pundits claimed, but knew it could convince more Amish people to vote in Pennsylvania in this election. They share many of the same beliefs as Republicans: a focus on religious freedom, economic opportunity, or in other words, want to “mind their business,” Habegger said.

“As far as efficiency goes, the Amish are much better at these things than the government,” Habegger said.

Scott Presler, a conservative activist who runs grassroots group Early Vote Action, which hosted targeted weekly voter registration drives and moved to Pennsylvania to flip the state back to red, said his organization is here to stay and is preparing to hire 19 full-time staff next week.

And he’s doubling down on their engagement with Amish voters, hiring a state director who will be specifically tasked with courting the votes of Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities.

“We’re not going away. This is a real concerted effort, not just every presidential year,” Presler said of his organization’s effort to engage more Amish people to vote in Pennsylvania.

It’s part of his group’s larger strategy for incrementally running up the numbers in every county in Pennsylvania: Turn out 500 to 1,000 new voters for Trump, and win the state — which is exactly what Trump did. Presler noted that all counties with large Amish populations produced more votes for Trump this year than in 2020, but he acknowledged these increases were not all attributable to Amish voters.

There are more than 90,000 Amish and Old Order Mennonite people living in Pennsylvania, which is the largest population in the country, with the highest population centered in Lancaster County.

There are approximately 400,000 Amish people living in the U.S., mostly in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The population continues to grow at a rapid rate, nearly doubling every 20 years and families have six to nine children on average — which will mean even more voters, Presler added.

State Rep. Dave Zimmerman (R., Lancaster), who represents a district with Amish and Old Order Mennonite populations, said these groups were engaged and concerned about the outcome of the election.

“The Amish are going to be most concerned about being able to be free to be Amish,” Zimmerman added. “Any issue that’s out there that is kinda interfering with their lifestyle, it’s going to be a concern,” such as invasive regulations or restrictions on their religious freedoms.

“For the most part, they want to be left alone to raise families, send their kids to school, be down on the farm or be part of their construction business,” Zimmerman said.