'Some kind of dissatisfaction:' Thousands of local primary voters cast ballots against Biden and Trump

Lauren Kulick doesn’t want Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be president. Outside her Scranton High School polling place on Tuesday, the 21-year-old Democrat said she cast her first-ever ballot in a presidential primary against her party’s incumbent candidate and presumptive 2024 nominee.

She wasn’t alone.

More than 4,500 Republican primary voters in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties joined more than 153,000 others across Pennsylvania in voting against Trump, while more than 6,200 of Kulick’s fellow Democrats in the two counties and about 123,000 others statewide voted against Biden.

The results, which some consider protest votes, are notable given neither Trump nor Biden faced a legitimate challenger. Both clinched their parties’ respective nominations before Tuesday’s primary, with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the lone Trump challenger on the Republican ballot, and U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, the only Biden challenger on the Democratic side, having ended their campaigns in March.

Trump, indicted last year on federal felony charges stemming from efforts to overturn the 2020 election before a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, is currently on trial in New York on state charges of falsifying business records relating to alleged hush-money payments to an adult film actress.

Trump also faces federal charges for his handling of classified documents and state charges in Georgia for alleged efforts to undo his 2020 election loss there.

Against that backdrop, Haley received about 16.6% of the Republican primary vote statewide, almost 12.9% in Lackawanna County and more than 11.2% in the more-conservative Luzerne County. She performed particularly well in the collar counties around Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold, and garnered more than 20% of the Republican vote in Lancaster County, where Trump defeated Biden in 2020 with more than 57% of the general election vote.

“That suggests some kind of dissatisfaction in the Republican party ... with Donald Trump,” Kingston-based political strategist Ed Mitchell said. “Having done multiple races in the Philadelphia suburbs at a time when the Republican Party was much stronger, if you didn’t come out of there well to offset the city of Philadelphia, it was going to be tough to win the state, and Trump seems to have a problem along those lines.”

Trump being in court and “very effective” messaging from the Biden campaign is “reminding people of the chaos of the Trump years,” he said. “I think the voters are tired of politics right now, but they’re especially tired of Trump.”

Biden, who recently campaigned in his native Scranton and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, beat Trump by about 80,000 votes in the state four years ago. His campaign has already seized on Tuesday’s primary results, reiterating that Haley voters have a home in the Biden camp.

But Biden also faces fierce criticism from many on the progressive left over his stalwart support for Israel amid that country’s controversial war in Gaza. Movements in Michigan and elsewhere encouraging Democratic primary voters to vote “uncommitted” over the Gaza issue suggest Biden may struggle in November to hold on to young progressives and Muslim and Arab-American voters.

Despite winning the Pennsylvania Democratic primary with nearly 88% of the vote, nearly 70,000 Democrats, including Kulick, voted for Phillips and more than 60,000 cast write-in votes. While the number of “uncommitted” write-ins is unknown, Luzerne County Democratic Party Chairman Thomas Shubilla acknowledged a number of those 60,000-plus Democratic write-ins are likely for Trump.

“I always tell people I don’t make political predictions, because when you make political predictions, even if you’re right a lot of the time, occasionally you’re going to look really stupid,” he said.

“What my gut says is ... there are people that are dissatisfied with the lack of choice. And my gut says that yeah, you know what, on the Democratic side there’s Democrats that are going to vote for Donald Trump, and ... I bet a lot of those write-ins may be just that.”

Shubilla is encouraged by the Republican votes for Haley. And while he’s “not spiking the football,” he believes the Haley votes evidence concern among some Republicans that Trump “does not equal a win.”

Lackawanna County Republican Party Chairman Dan Naylor, on the other hand, believes the Republican votes against Trump reflect that “Nikki Haley is an excellent candidate.”

“At the same time, I don’t think it reflects really that bad on Donald Trump, because he did win handily,” said Naylor, who doesn’t think most Haley voters will vote for Biden.

The nearly 130,000 Democratic votes against Biden, Naylor said, reflect a “frustration of where our economy is and the open border.”

In an email, Keystone College political science professor Jeff Brauer said most of the Democratic “protest vote seems likely to return to Biden in the general election,” noting progressives won’t vote for Trump.

Kulick acknowledged she’ll likely vote for Biden in November despite her dissatisfaction with both candidates and lack of excitement over her general election options.

“I would rather see Joe Biden be the president than Trump,” she said.

Brauer, meanwhile, said Haley capturing nearly 17% of the Republican vote statewide has to be disconcerting to the Trump campaign.

“Some Haley voters will come home to Trump in the fall,” he said. “But many of her voters are likely to stay home, vote third-party or even vote for Biden. This is particularly true in the collar counties of Philadelphia where education levels are higher and in Lackawanna County — Biden’s birth county.

“The numbers from Luzerne County have to be particularly jarring to the Trump campaign. Luzerne County has been famously one of Trump’s strongholds, even catapulting him to the White House in 2016.”

Still, both Shubilla and Mitchell cautioned that things can change quickly in an election year.

Developments in Trump’s various criminal cases, a potential cease-fire in Gaza and other potentially unforeseen happenings can sway portions of the electorate more for or against either candidate.

“When it comes to presidential politics, or politics in general, things change day by day,” Shubilla said. “This is a snapshot of today, not necessarily November.”

Brauer and others expect Northeastern Pennsylvania to remain a focal point as Trump and Biden campaign for votes in the key battleground state.

“Both candidates will spend here an enormous amount of money and time with visits and surrogates,” Brauer said. “From now until November, NEPA will be one of the centers of the political universe.”