If you walked through the rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in late 2024, you probably saw something that felt a little surreal. Nestled between the traditional gray barns and the laundry lines filled with plain black trousers were signs. Bright red ones. Some were propped up on buggies, and others were nailed to fence posts. It’s no secret anymore: the "Plain People"—the Amish and Mennonites—came out for Donald Trump in a way that left political analysts scratching their heads.
But why?
People love to talk about the Amish as if they’re frozen in a 19th-century amber, but they aren’t. They’re observant. They're business owners. And frankly, in 2024, they were annoyed. Understanding why did the amish vote for trump requires looking past the "quaint" stereotypes and seeing a community that felt its entire way of life was being shoved into a corner by a government it never asked to lead it.
The Raw Milk Raid That Sparked a Movement
Honestly, if you want to find the exact moment the tide turned, look at January 4, 2024. State officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture raided the farm of Amos Miller in Bird-in-Hand. Now, Amos isn't just any farmer. He’s a guy who sells raw milk and natural products. The state said they were investigating E. coli; the Amish saw something else entirely.
They saw a heavy-handed government coming for a man’s livelihood.
For a community that prides itself on "neighbor helping neighbor" and self-sufficiency, that raid was a lightning rod. It wasn't just about milk. It was about the principle of "food freedom." When the government tells you what you can and cannot eat from your own soil, it feels personal. It feels like an attack on the family unit.
✨ Don't miss: Ukraine War Map May 2025: Why the Frontlines Aren't Moving Like You Think
Republican activists, like Scott Presler, were smart. They didn't just show up and talk about tax brackets. They went to the Green Dragon Farmers Market. They talked about Amos Miller. They connected the dots between big government overreach and the daily struggles of a man trying to run a farm without a computer.
Business Owners in Buggies
There’s this huge misconception that all Amish are farmers. It’s just not true anymore. There isn't enough land left in Lancaster County to give every kid a 50-acre plot.
Instead, a whole new generation of Amish has turned to small business. They build gazebos. They make high-end furniture. They run construction crews.
- Regulations: These folks hate red tape.
- Taxes: They don't use many social services, so they resent paying for them.
- The Economy: Inflation hits a buggy-maker just as hard as it hits a tech worker in Philly.
When Trump talks about cutting regulations and "getting the government off your back," it rings true to an Amish carpenter who just spent three weeks trying to get a permit for a shed. They see the GOP as the party of the small business owner, and in 2024, the Amish are very much in business.
The "Two Kingdoms" Theology Meets 2024
Most Amish traditionally don't vote. They believe in the "Two Kingdoms" doctrine—there’s the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Man. Usually, they stay out of the latter. But 2024 felt different.
🔗 Read more: Percentage of Women That Voted for Trump: What Really Happened
The rhetoric changed. You started seeing letters in local papers from anonymous Amish men saying that "standing against evil" was a biblical mandate. They looked at the Democratic platform—specifically on issues like abortion and gender ideology—and saw a direct conflict with their faith.
Trump, for all his New York bombast, positioned himself as the protector of religious liberty. To the Amish, he was the "tough guy" who would keep the secular world from knocking on their schoolhouse doors.
Did Peanut the Squirrel Actually Matter?
It sounds like a joke, but in the final week of the 2024 election, the story of Peanut the Squirrel—a pet squirrel seized and euthanized by New York state officials—went viral in the Plain communities.
Why? Because it was the ultimate symbol of government overreach.
To an Amish farmer, the idea that the state could enter a private home and kill an animal because of "permits" was the stuff of nightmares. It mirrored the Amos Miller raid. It became a meme in the real world. It was the "last straw" for a lot of people who were already on the fence about whether or not to break their tradition of silence and head to the polls.
💡 You might also like: What Category Was Harvey? The Surprising Truth Behind the Number
The Numbers: What Really Happened?
Let’s be real—some of the claims online were wild. People were tweeting that 180,000 Amish voted for Trump. That’s impossible. There are only about 92,000 Amish people in all of Pennsylvania, and about half of them are children.
Experts like Steven Nolt from Elizabethtown College point out that the actual number of Amish voters is likely in the low thousands. In 2020, about 3,000 Amish voted in Lancaster. In 2024, that number definitely went up—some estimates suggest a 10-15% increase in registration—but they didn't "flip" the state on their own.
However, in an election decided by thin margins, every horse-drawn buggy that pulled up to a polling station mattered. They were part of a larger shift in rural Pennsylvania that favored Trump’s populist message.
Actionable Insights: Understanding the Shift
If you're trying to understand the intersection of faith and politics in rural America, the Amish vote is a perfect case study. Here’s what we can learn:
- Local Issues Win: The raid on Amos Miller's farm did more to mobilize the Amish than any national TV ad ever could.
- Trust is Earned on the Ground: Activists who actually visited markets and spoke the language (sometimes literally) were the ones who moved the needle.
- The "Silent" Aren't Always Quiet: Just because a group doesn't use social media doesn't mean they aren't communicating. The Amish grapevine is incredibly fast and effective.
If you want to see this in action, take a drive through the PA-11 congressional district. You'll see the aftermath of an electorate that decided their way of life was worth a trip to the ballot box. The Amish didn't vote for Trump because they loved his personality; they voted for him because they felt he was the only thing standing between them and a government that wanted to regulate their milk, their schools, and their peace.
To see how these trends are playing out in other rural communities, you can track the local election data from the Pennsylvania Department of State or look into the work being done at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. They provide the most grounded, data-driven look at how these communities are evolving in real-time.