St. George • They may be the stuff of rumors, like Bigfoot or UFOs, but Democrats and Harris-Walz supporters in heavily Republican Washington County actually exist — and they are making themselves seen and heard this election season.
Amid all the oversized Donald Trump flags and “Make America Great Again” signs displayed loudly and proudly across the county, smaller Kamala Harris signs are cropping up at some intersections, in front yards and on home windows — or, in Ann Roberts’ case, on her person.
Roberts said she was wearing a “Harris 2024″ T-shirt at a concert in St. George earlier this month when a man in the audience scolded her and suggested she should wear something more appropriate.
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) A sign supporting the election of Kamala Harris is seen in Washington County, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024.
“This is Trump country, and you are just living in it,” Roberts said the man told her. “You should be grateful for the privilege of being allowed to live here.”
Indeed, Washington County is Trump country. In the 2020 election, the Republican tallied nearly 75% of the vote here, compared to Democrat Joe Biden’s 22.7%. In 2016, Trump garnered just under 69% of the county’s presidential vote, well above the 45.4% he earned statewide.
Trump is expected to carry Washington County in this year’s presidential election as well. After all, a Democrat has not won elective office in Utah’s fifth-most populous county for more than 50 years, according to county election officials.
Standing up, standing out
Still, that is not stopping Harris backers from showing their support and trying to persuade independents and moderate Republicans to give the Democratic presidential nominee a try — however futile the results or infuriating the repercussions.
For example, Lisa Aedo, a vice chair of the Washington County Democratic Party, recalls joining other volunteers recently to put up Harris signs at the intersection of Bluff and Main streets in St. George as drivers yelled obscenities out their car windows.
“When I drove by the next morning, all the signs were gone,” said Aedo, adding that police are combing through footage from a nearby traffic camera to find the perpetrators.
Other Harris supporters have also encountered hostilities.
Ellen Olson said she and some friends were watching the vice president speak at the Democratic National Convention at a downtown St. George bar when some patrons threatened them, called her a “b----” and said, “I guess we’re going to get in a fight tonight.”
A self-proclaimed progressive and unapologetic liberal, Olson typically keeps a low profile. One of the telltale indicators of her political affiliation, though, is her baseball cap inscribed with a comma followed by the syllable “la.”
Olson, a Phoenix transplant who moved to Hurricane several years ago, shies away from being too outspoken, especially since she is not a member of Utah’s predominant faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I worry about my kids being ostracized,” she said. “I try to find the balance between speaking up and supporting what I believe in and not putting a target on our back as kind of those crazy liberals that just moved in.”
Olson notices, however, that many on the Trump side of the political spectrum do not share the same reticence. For example, a home near the Hurricane preschool where she once took her children still flies a “f--- Biden” sign and a Confederate flag. Moreover, pickups trailing oversized Trump 2024 banners inscribed with an expletive are roving streets and boulevards across the county.
In Ivins, Greg Robinson was talking to a neighbor next to the Harris flag he and his wife, Debi, posted in their front yard, when another neighbor, a Trump supporter, pedaled up on his bike.
“He told me that he could take down my flag if I didn’t mind,” Robinson said. “I said, ‘No, that’s OK. I’m for democracy.’ He then stormed off and [uttered an expletive] as he was leaving.”
The small sign in Bud and Barb Pridie’s yard reads: “Veterans are not suckers or losers,” a reference to what former President Donald Trump allegedly called American veterans who were killed in World War I during a trip to France in 2018. Trump has denied the accusation.
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) A political yard sign is seen in Washington County, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024.
Barb Pridie said a neighbor complained that the sign was an eyesore.
“She said she hated having to walk past my sign each day to collect her mail,” the Ivins resident said. “I asked, ‘What about all the Trump signs in people’s yards around the corner? How is this different?’ I told her the sign was not going anywhere and that if she wanted to have a debate about Harris and Trump, that was fine, but she wouldn’t win.”
St. George resident Stacy Lee said she was camping at Panguitch Lake several weeks ago when she encountered Trump supporters flying a banner from their recreational vehicle that read, “Get rid of Joe,” which was followed with a derogatory word toward women to describe Harris.
When she asked them to take it down, the RV owners eventually complied, but Lee wonders why anyone would think it is OK to display such an offensive banner in the first place.
“Can you imagine if I had pulled into that campground and put up an [anti-Trump] and a pride flag?” she asked. “It would have been World War III.”
Book of Mormon stories
Fran Rasmussen of St. George has a Harris sign affixed to her living room window, which irked a Latter-day Saint neighbor. She said the woman warned her the Book of Mormon, the faith’s signature scripture, teaches that when a majority of people support wicked rulers — like the woman alleged Harris was — the nation is ripe for destruction.
“She said my support of Harris not only put my family at risk but also hers and families all over America,” said Rasmussen, who is not a Latter-day Saint. “Yet she and her husband are voting for a convicted felon and a compulsive liar who tried to subvert our elections. I managed to keep my composure, but I was so angry [that] I wanted to throw her out of my house.”
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) A flag supporting the election of Donald Trump is seen in Washington County, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024.
Rory Fisher, meanwhile, hasn’t encountered any blowback as a result of the Trump flag he flies from the back fence of his Washington City home. Because he is in the majority, he doesn’t expect any. Still, he said, he enjoys telling any Harris supporters who will listen that a vote for her is a vote for socialism, runaway immigration and transgender influence in the nation’s public schools.
“But I am always willing to let them post Harris signs and listen to what they have to say,” he continued, “no matter how deluded they are.”
Vince Brown, director of Utah Tech University’s Institute of Politics, said as heated as the rhetoric is this election season, it seems to fall short of that exhibited during the 2020 election. For instance, he noted, only a handful of the 170 Utah Tech students who gathered on campus for the Harris-Trump debate thought the Republican nominee won, even though many of them backed Trump and leaned conservative.
“Our students are actually quite civil,” Brown said, “and acknowledge when one side does something well and when one side does something poorly, regardless of their ideology or party affiliation.”
Civility also pops up off campus on occasion.
As she was putting up signs in St. George, Aedo recalls a Trump supporter stopping by to ask her how she could support Harris. The two wound up having a spirited but polite exchange of views.
“Those conversations are wonderful,” she said, “because it is important to understand other people’s points of view.”
