General
Small-Town Pennsylvania Is Changing, and Democrats See Opportunity
Politics came last at the 89th Ephrata Fair Parade. After the cheerleaders, Shriners and Cub Scouts, after the Republican float piled with bales of hay, local Democrats, on Float No. 119, braced for a hail of boos and perhaps even candy projectiles …
Politics came last at the 89th Ephrata Fair Parade.
After the cheerleaders, Shriners and Cub Scouts, after the Republican float piled with bales of hay, local Democrats, on Float No. 119, braced for a hail of boos and perhaps even candy projectiles. After all, it was late September in an election year in Ephrata, a conservative town in Lancaster County, Pa.
But that night, the booing was more sporadic than they expected; there were even a few cheers. The most concentrated jeering came late in the route, when a yard full of parade watchers greeted themwith the anti-Biden chant “Let’s go, Brandon!”
The yard belonged to Brian Keith, 49, who has lived there for years. “It’s very much a conservative, right-leaning community,” he said.
But with more newcomers showing up, “it’s very much turning blue,” he said. “Give it another 10 years, and we’re going to be outnumbered.”
Democrats in the Ephrata Fair Parade said they braced themselves for boos from the crowd.Credit…Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times
