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Harrisonburg, Virginia, is a beautiful little town nestled in the Shenandoah Valley that is just waking up from a nap as it awaits the arrival of students at James Madison University next week.
“They come from New York or New Jersey and register to vote here,” Marla, the manager of the Texas Inn restaurant, told me. She didn't mind, it's a reality in these kinds of villages.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attends an infrastructure event addressing high-speed internet in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House in Washington, U.S., June 3, 2021. (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)
Marla is a Donald Trump supporter, a white woman in her 50s, and she was the first person in Harrisonburg to whom I asked the urgent question of the day: Do you know who Kamala Harris is?
“Not at all,” he said. “I have no idea.”
This was the response I got from everyone I spoke to, across the political spectrum, and it was on display in all its bright colors in Harrisonburg.
Soon, the Texas Diner in Harrisonburg, Virginia, will be packed with out-of-state college students registered to vote in Virginia.
Rick was there for a photographers' convention and is a Democrat from rural Virginia, another older white voter.
“I'd like to see Harris do some interviews to make it clearer what she stands for,” he told me.
I asked him if he would continue to vote for her if she continued to defy the press.
“Yes,” he said, “I mean, look at the other option.”
Earlier that day, I had spoken to Jim from New York, who was dropping his sophomore daughter off at school, and he gave me the opposite answer.
“I'm a Republican,” he told me, “so I can't vote for this far-left Democratic ticket. But I'm also a New Yorker.” [and] I'm not crazy about Trump, but what other choice do I have?
More and more, this election is looking like: 2024. What are my options?
Larry, a local in his 40s listening to another talented local playing guitar in the hotel lobby, has all but given up.
The Shenandoah Valley college town is filled with churches and gathering places where people wonder who Kamala Harris really is. (David Marcus/Fox News Digital)
“It doesn't matter who the president is,” he said, resigned to an increasingly common political despair. “Until Congress has term limits, it doesn't matter, they just do what's best for them.”
But there are still voters who are making up their minds, who are not swayed by any of the parties or candidates. Derrick, a black man in his thirties who is in town for a leadership conference, also wants to know what Harris stands for.
“He has no platform,” she said. “All I hear is women's rights and abortion. I want to know if he's going to be Biden again.”
Many people want to know, but do they want it badly enough to allow Harris to define herself? That remains to be seen.
The frustration of the American electorate is becoming more and more evident. As one person said: “These politicians talk without anyone listening to us.”
Democrats I spoke to here, as elsewhere in the fair city and on America’s highways, are more enthusiastic now that Harris is running. It’s palpable, it’s real, there’s no doubt about it, but there’s something else, a kind of nervous fuzziness.
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“Maybe the less I do, the better,” another member of the leadership conference confided to me, and I could hear in his voice that he knew what he was saying was, well, less than ideal.
In just over a week, when wide-eyed freshmen fill the dorms at James Madison and Marla starts serving them cheese-and-cheese Westerns and homemade Texas gravy, the Democratic National Convention will begin. Surely, the real Kamala Harris must appear, if there is one.
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But for now, in this charming city of bell towers and university gardens, voters are waiting. They are waiting to see whether Trump can maintain discipline, whether Harris can define herself, or whether some new development will throw another curveball into this strange election.
People are thinking, but they are also living their lives, and politics doesn't always cut it. That may be what Kamala Harris and her campaign are counting on. And it could work.
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