Jefferson County Republicans are jubilant while Democrats are anxious after presidential election

FAIRFIELD – Republicans across the country were in a celebratory mood Tuesday night as results showed former President Donald Trump as the likely victor in the presidential race, plus Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

Trump carried Jefferson County with 4,350 votes (52 percent) compared to Democrat Kamala Harris receiving 3,774 votes (45 percent). He also appears to have carried Iowa, having garnered 56 percent of the vote to Harris’ 43 percent with 97 of the 99 counties reporting results as of Wednesday morning.

National media outlets gave Trump a high probability of winning the election based on the ballots that had been counted Tuesday, and early Wednesday morning, some of them had declared Trump the winner. At 5 a.m. Wednesday, The New York Times issued a breaking report that Trump had won.

In Fairfield, Republicans and Democrats gathered at their respective headquarters for watch parties that lasted late into the night. At the Orpheum Theatre on West Broadway, the mood at the Jefferson County Democrats’ headquarters was tense. By 9 p.m. Tuesday, the race was still up in the air, but it was evident that Trump was out-performing his vote totals from 2020, while Harris was receiving fewer votes than President Joe Biden did four years ago.

A few blocks away in the former Arbor Bar location on the south side of the Fairfield square, the Jefferson County Republicans were glued to the television, watching a livestream of Benny Johnson’s “The Benny Show” report the state results as they came in. Jefferson County Republican Vice Chair Matthew Rowe said about 30 people showed up at the headquarters, and their spirits were lifted “seeing states turning red across the country.”

Rowe said Trump’s victory both nationally and locally showed that “people around here support Trump and his agenda, and look forward to a better direction for our country.” Rowe added that Trump was helped in Jefferson County by “old-school Democrats” who support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Though RFK Jr. appeared on the ballot and received 106 votes (1.27 percent) in Jefferson County, he had suspended his presidential bid in August when he formally endorsed Trump for president. Rowe said he was sure that this endorsement from RFK Jr. helped Trump locally.

“I know Kennedy had a lot of support, and Trump embracing those ideas and trying to bridge divides with disparate groups has made a big difference,” he said.

Fairfield resident Joseph Perna attended Tuesday’s Republican watch party and was jubilant as Trump’s chances of winning climbed higher and higher.

“Our country was on the edge of destruction, and now we have a fighting chance for prosperity,” Perna said.

Perna said he was highly active in the campaign, purchasing Trump signs to give away to anyone who wanted them. He volunteers with a group called Iowa Canvassing that seeks transparent and accountable elections. Earlier this year, he and others in the group challenged 67 names that were on the voter rolls in Jefferson County because they were no longer residents of the county, and he said all of those challenges were accepted by Jefferson County Elections Clerk Abbie DeKleine.

“The biggest element in voter fraud is dirty voter rolls,” Perna said, explaining why he believed purging ineligible voters from the rolls was important. “That way, cheating becomes very hard.”

Fairfield resident Rick Shaddock also attended the Republicans’ watch party, and he said that he had just finished a day of volunteering as a poll watcher at Ward 2, which was moved from the former Lincoln School to the Jefferson County Engineer’s Office. Shaddock said he was glad to see Trump win and that he believes Trump is the true “peace candidate” who can end the war in Ukraine.

At the Jefferson County Democrats’ headquarters, several people felt that the fate of democracy was at stake. Fairfield resident Michael Morgan said he knows what it’s like to live in an autocracy because he taught in Moscow.

“Once you become a dictatorship, they don’t leave,” he said. “If you look at Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin, they find a way to stay in power.”

Resident Lenore Jones remarked that “everyone who watches Trump knows he’s not fit for this office,” and that the news his supporters watch is “mostly Putin propaganda.” She added that the “only time he did any work” was on Jan. 6, 2021, but otherwise “played golf and sold secrets.”

Resident Ryan Miller said he was worried about Trump turning the country into a “fascist government.”

“He has complete immunity, and he’d be able to erode the rights of Americans,” Miller said.

Resident Rich Sims said he liked Harris as a candidate and her platform about “democracy working for everybody.”

“I’m worried about inequality, about people living below the poverty level, and about becoming a country of oligarchs,” he said.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

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