Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- Utah residents Ella and Cherise Udell moved to Pennsylvania to canvass for Vice President Kamala Harris.
- Despite Utah's Republican lean, the Udells aim to influence the swing state of Pennsylvania.
- Their efforts focus on Bucks County, a critical area for determining election outcomes.
SALT LAKE CITY — A swing state's newest campaigners are Utahns.
Shortly after President Joe Biden exited the race and Harris ascended atop the Democratic ticket, Cherise and Ella Udell knew they wanted to help. Ella, 18, a recent high school graduate, was taking a gap year before entering college; her mother, Cherise, decided she'd take an "adult gap year" of her own.
They'd volunteered on local campaigns before, but had never dedicated themselves full-time to canvassing — why not now?
"The stakes are so high," Ella said, "that we felt like we need to take an action that was equal to the stakes."
In their home state, ruby-red Utah, Trump is almost sure to win, and Harris' team was making no effort to campaign there. The mother-daughter duo had an idea: What if we move to a swing state?
On Sept. 6, they loaded up their car and headed east. They'd already decided against Arizona and Nevada, the two closest swing states — "they are too hot and dry," Cherise said, and they'd be spending long days going door-to-door. By the time they hit the Great Plains, they'd opted against Wisconsin and Michigan, too; by the Cumberland Gap, they were down to North Carolina and Pennsylvania. They opted to go north. Now, a month-and-a-half later, they're running Harris' volunteer operations in a suburban Pennsylvania town.
On weekdays, the duo work out of the Harris campaign's Doylestown hub, an hour north of Philadelphia, where they staff the office or go out to canvass. On weekends, they oversee a satellite office in Warminster, another Bucks County township, where the 18-year-old Ella is formally titled the "staging location director."
As volunteers, neither of them are paid, but they've been the beneficiaries of small-town kindness: the local dentist, when he found out their situation, cleaned their teeth for free; their Airbnb host, after seeing their campaign signs, stopped charging them after the second night. They've stayed at the apartment now for over a month. "We have had an amazingly warm, open-armed reception," Cherise said. "I've been blown away."
The Udells are part of a long history of Utahns who, despite having little influence as voters, throw themselves into canvassing efforts during the homestretch of presidential campaigns.
Oftentimes, it's been Utah Republicans at the forefront: In deep-red Utah, where a Democratic presidential candidate has not won since 1964, the state party's volunteer apparatus has consistently parachuted volunteers into neighboring swing states to help turn out the vote. Earlier this month, the Utah Republican Party provided all-expenses-paid bus trips to Arizona and Nevada, bolstering turnout efforts for both Trump and Republican Senate candidates.
That is nothing new: In past cycles, Utah Republicans have traveled across the country to help their party. "When the call has come from the party or individual candidates, there have always been a lot of people that have gone out, riding the buses, canvassing, or phone banking," said Ronald Fox, a Salt Lake City-based historian who served as an advance man for six U.S. presidents. Fox noted that Mitt Romney's two presidential campaigns solicited an unusually high volume of Utah support, due to his faith and connections to the state. But the tradition predated Romney — a story is often told, perhaps apocryphal, of George W. Bush thanking Utah for securing him his 2004 victory, "not because they voted in Utah, but because they canvassed in Nevada."
Could the Udells do the same for Harris in 2024? They picked the right county if they want to try. Bucks County, their temporary home, is one of the "collar counties" expected to determine which candidate wins Pennsylvania, the battleground state with the most electoral votes. In 2016, Clinton won the county by less than 2,000 votes; in 2020, Biden won by nearly 18,000. This year, the county is expected to be decided by a razor-thin margin, and both campaigns have targeted it as a must-win area. (Harris herself visited the county last week.)
"It's been so uplifting to see people come most of the way across the country, to help basically save democracy," said Laurie Kaczanowska, a fellow volunteer in Harris' Doylestown office.
Now, with Pennsylvania's voter registration deadline in the rearview, the Udell women are keyed in on helping as many of their new Bucks County neighbors to vote as possible. Weeks ago, the Harris campaign instructed them it was the "persuasion phase," where they would spend afternoons and evenings visiting the homes of potentially undecided voters and making the Harris pitch. Now, it's the "get-out-the-vote phase": They are visiting registered Democrats who haven't voted, and making sure they have plans to do so.
"We have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen in Utah," said Scott Howell, the former Utah Senate minority leader and the Udells' neighbor in Salt Lake City. "But anything could happen in Pennsylvania. And Cherise and Ella are in the middle of it."
On Thursday evening, they drove to a neighborhood just outside of Doylestown, armed with a stack of pro-Harris fliers and instructions on how to vote. I watched as they systematically visited house after house, asking if the registered Democrats were home, if they had a plan to vote, and if the two volunteers could help to carry it out, like tracking their mail-in ballot or giving a ride to the polling location.
One woman, a Ukrainian, noted she and her family were lifelong Republicans but changed their registrations in recent years. "We're voting for Democrats, all the way down," she said. "Awesome!" Ella responded. Later, a white-haired man said he was a Republican, but his wife and two voting-age children were Democrats. "We all plan to support Harris, though," he said. By the end of the conversation, he was interested in volunteering to shuttle voters to polling sites on Election Day. He and Cherise exchanged contact information.
At another home, a car pulled into the driveway right as the Udells arrived. Two children in karate uniforms piled out of the back seat, the mother following them. "I'm voting for Harris, for sure," she said. One of her children interrupted her. "I wish I could vote, because I could be the deciding vote," he said.
Ella smiled. "I'm 18, voting in my first election," she told the boy. "You can too, someday."
