WAYNE COUNTY, PA — It’s near impossible to forget there is an election in less than a week driving through Northeastern Pennsylvania as political signs line yards and roadways. 

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of swing states that will likely decide who takes the White House. Coming into the race’s final stretch, the two candidates, are neck-and-neck in the polls, polling averages compiled by 538 giving Trump an 0.3 percentage point lead in the state as of October 27. 

The race has energized political spirits locally in Wayne County. 

“People are really excited about this election,” says Wayne County Republican Party Chair Steve Adams. “Excited and concerned.”

Adams says the party has given out around 3,000 Trump signs, which he believes outnumbers the Harris signs. “All you have to do is go riding around the county and you’ll notice the difference.”

Wayne County Democratic Party Chair Ann Monaghan says the party has seen a better response than for any other election cycle she’s been a part of.

When Harris was put at the top of the ticket, “We couldn’t keep signs in the office,” Monaghan says—they were flying out the doors too fast. 

Not all of those signs have survived their placement unscathed. Both parties have seen vandalism to their displays; the River Reporter has observed Trump’s name spray-painted over with words like “felon” and “unfit,” and Democratic signs on Route 6 spray-painted with phallic iconography. 

Monaghan says the Democrats have had several of their barn signs taken down and destroyed, and others vandalized. “That’s one of the things that’s disturbing me, that people aren’t respecting other people’s opinions,” she says. 

“You’re always going to have people who aren’t exactly decent,” says Adams, who adds he’s seen vandalism on both sides. 

One difference between the two parties’ local efforts is that the Democratic side is spending a lot more on billboards, says Adams, with sources of funding “much outside the realm of normal.”

A series of yellow billboards purporting to explain Harris’ positions lists their funding as coming from YourCommunityPAC. The political action committee has a Delaware registration and has raised a little over $19 million as of October 28, according to a campaign finance listing run by ProPublica; the committee did not respond to the River Reporter’s requests for comment. 

Monaghan says the local party has put up some billboards, but it is not involved with the YourCommunityPAC billboards. 

Pennsylvania as a whole is a purple state but Wayne County carries more of a reddish tint. 

Wayne County is definitely a “Republican enclave,” says Monaghan. She says that in July and August, the number of new Republican registered voters outnumbered the tally for Democrats and independents two to one. See sidebar.

However, Monaghan says she believes the county has “quiet Democrats,” people who registered Republican because that’s what their family has always done, but who will vote Democratic once inside a voting booth. 

On the Republican side, Adams says the party is trying to ensure people vote early; the last day to do so was October 28. 

There are barriers for people voting on election day, says Adams. “If you can’t get to the polls before you go to work, and you get there at 5, where does that leave you?”

Sixty-five to 70 percent of registered voters don’t vote, says Adams. “That’s the motivation behind all this, to get people out to vote.”