A Pennsylvania farming family struggles to find their place in Trump's GOP
Mary Mellinger lugged a large white cooler up a steep sidewalk from her stand at Lancaster Central Market to her electric car. She had finished a nine-hour shift on her feet.
Though tired, her day had just begun.
“We start milking the goats at four,” she said as she closed down her goat-cheese stand at three in the afternoon. The market is nearly 300 years old, and Mary has been selling her family farm products there for 15 years.
Lancaster, a large rural county in eastern Pennsylvania, is home to the largest Amish community in the United States. In this swing state, Lancaster county rarely ever switches parties. In presidential elections, it religiously votes for the Republican nominee. Mary, 61, fit that profile for most of her life, but as the political landscape has changed, her politics no longer align with her county's majority.
"We are very traditional," Mary said. "We lead a very traditional life. We have very traditional values. But what is going on politically does not align with our morals."
Despite its voting history, President Biden did cut into the margins in Lancaster County in 2020, and Vice President Harris will need to do the same in rural counties like it to win the state this year.
On the 20-minute drive up to Mary’s farm, Trump signs were sprinkled throughout town like confetti.
Mary and her husband, Andrew Mellinger, 63, own Linden Dale Farm, a small goat farm in the middle of an unincorporated farming community. At first glance, Mary and Andrew are the ideal Lancaster family: they label themselves as conservatives, regularly attend church, and happily make a living on their farm.
But they are more than meets the eye. They're conservatives — but won't vote Republican. They didn't explicitly say whether they will vote for Harris, either. They attend a Mennonite church and both have Ivy League agriculture degrees from Cornell University.
“We're very conservative, but this [county] is Republican, Republican, Republican,” Mary said. “But for us, we’re just most concerned about the values."
Since 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected, Pennsylvania has consistently voted for the Democratic nominee, with the exception of former President Donald Trump, who won the state by roughly 45,000 votes in 2016. Four years later, in 2020, the state flipped again, and Biden won it by about 80,000 votes, according to Pennsylvania voting results data.
Back at Linden Dale Farm, there are no signs or big, bold and red flags. It’s breeding season in their world.
Mary and Andrew own about 100 Lamancha goats, including three bucks for breeding. The remaining 90 females are milked twice a day to meet the demand for their goat cheese at the market, where they make all their farm sales.
The Mellingers are self-sufficient, producing much of their own meat and seasonal produce. But affordable health care is one of their main issue. In Lancaster, residents are more likely to be uninsured compared to the national average. They can afford health care thanks to the Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010 to make health care more affordable and accessible for low-income families and uninsured people.
“It’s pretty scary with the cost of health care and insurance,” Mary said. “We certainly don't want that [Obamacare] to go away. That's been a real blessing. And actually, there were many years when we did not have insurance.”
Mary and Andrew have six children, and each time they were expecting, they sought out health insurance, put money aside to afford it, and immediately got off of it once their children were born. Their children were insured by the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.
In 2020, Pennsylvania began its own health insurance marketplace, commonly known as Pennie, which was signed into law to meet the needs of Pennsylvanians. It includes the 10 essential health benefits established in the Affordable Care Act.
During his presidency, Trump made an effort to repeal and replace Obamacare but was unsuccessful. This year, while campaigning, he has made sweeping promises to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, without detailing any specific plans.
Andrew says he’s nostalgic for what the Republican Party once represented. As a young man, he supported the party because he believed it advocated for small government, but he feels the GOP abandoned that sentiment long ago.
As the seasons change, so do Andrew and Mary. Their ability to adapt is key to their success in business and personal contentment. But their neighbors and family members are less receptive to change.
“It’s painful. People that we love are just believing anything,” Mary said.
They have reached a point where they’ve stopped discussing politics with anyone outside their immediate family.
According to a Pew Research report, more than half of American adults feel angry and exhausted when thinking about U.S. politics. When asked to describe the current political climate, 80% used negative terms like “divisive,” “corrupt,” and “messy.”
“I think both sides of the aisle don't really want to talk about it because they don't want to give up family relationships,” Andrew said. “You don’t want to ruffle feathers.”
Their two oldest sons, Andy Mellinger Jr. and Abe Mellinger, will purchase the farm by the end of the year and carry the business into a seventh generation.
Abe and Andy aren’t too different from their parents. All four attended Cornell University and received agriculture degrees. One in 10 farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers have degrees in their field, and the average education level is a high school diploma or equivalent.
The divide between white voters with and without college degrees has been one of the most visible divides in the Trump era. In 2016, Trump won white voters with college degrees in five of the seven key swing states — Pennsylvania, along with Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. But in 2020, Biden won white voters with degrees in six of the seven states.
Even so, the majority of voters in three key swing states — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — are white people without college degrees, a group Trump appeals to by tapping into cultural resentment and unresolved grievances.
“We’re kind of unicorns in our community,” Abe said.
As he steps into the family business and carries the legacy of farming in Lancaster into the next generation, he hopes to inspire his peers to embrace change.
“Change is what makes this possible.”
The radio version of this story was edited by Jan Johnson and produced by Barry Gordemer. The digital was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi.
