On its own, that cannot come close to flipping a state that went for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 by about 80,000 votes.
Of course, the Amish are hardly the only religious or ethnic constituency being courted by candidates. “In a context where every vote counts, every vote counts,” Nolt said. “But no, we’re not talking tens of thousands of Amish votes.”
Still, Smucker is optimistic about a larger turnout. He said Republican messages resonate with a changing Amish community.
“It was once more agrarian, but they’ve long ago run out of land in Lancaster County,” he said. Only a minority are still in farming, with many starting small businesses, where the Republican emphasis on limited regulation is appealing. Plus, he said, the Amish community perceives Republicans as more friendly to religious liberty and opposed to abortion.
He said Amish tell stories of how their forebears were more likely to vote in the 1950s during controversies about compulsory school policies, but the practice has decreased since then.
Wayne Wengerd, Ohio state director of the Amish Steering Committee, which navigates relations between Amish community leaders and government officials, recalls registration efforts as far back as the 1960s. Get-out-the-vote activists are “going to go after everyone and anyone they think they could possibly convince to vote for their party,” he said. “The Amish are no different.”
Amish theology keeps the church separate from government
But most Amish avoid voting in keeping with “two-kingdom” theology, which puts a stark separation between earthly government and the church with its focus on a heavenly kingdom. They see themselves “being citizens primarily in another kingdom,” Wengerd said.
But, he noted, some still vote. “The Amish are just like any other people,” he said. “Not everyone thinks the same.”
Rural Lancaster County has for generations voted Republican, Nolt said, and so it’s also not surprising that any Amish who do vote would be influenced by their neighbors’ preferences. Most Amish voters register as Republicans, he said. .
An ad in a Lancaster-area newspaper, attributed to an anonymous “Amishman” from Ohio, said refusing to vote would violate Scripture by failing to “stand against evil” while “every good thing our nation stands for is destroyed.” A voicemail message seeking comment, left with the phone number on the ad, wasn’t returned.
Nolt said that ad is appealing to a theology more similar to that of mainstream Reformed Protestantism, which says Christians have a duty both to God and country, than to traditional Amish two-kingdom theology.
“It’s very different than anything in historic Amish documents, which would have said responsibility of the church is to be the church,” he said.
Nolt said a letter being sent to Amish residents did call for voting Republican but didn’t appear aimed at the Amish in particular, citing such issues as immigration.
The widespread support for Trump among conservative Christians of many types has long perplexed observers, given his casino ventures, allegations of sexual assault and vulgar public statements.
Nolt, however, said that compared with the Amish’s separatist lifestyles, neither presidential candidate looks much like them — one reason most of them don’t vote. “Donald Trump’s life is very different from an Amish person’s life, but so is Kamala Harris’,” he said.
