[00:00:01] The following is a presentation of FCB Faith. Keeping America First with Bishop John T. Coates and Reverend Jeff Jemison on FCB Faith.
[00:00:21] Welcome to this wonderful day and time in our great country. And today we are launching our new show, Keeping America First.
[00:00:30] And we have a very important guest on this premiere show. None other than Tom Eddy, who happens to be the chairman of the Erie PA County.
[00:00:45] That's Erie County PA Republican Party. Welcome to our show, Tom. How are you today?
[00:00:53] I'm doing fine. I appreciate you having me here. I really do.
[00:00:56] These are exciting times post-election. Tom, tell us a little bit about Erie PA and the county chair, the county party there. Just what you do as chairman.
[00:01:10] Well, first of all, Erie has been for some reason this year designated as a bellwether county.
[00:01:17] I think there were six that they picked out throughout the nation that said that the direction that they go will determine the race.
[00:01:25] And obviously, I think all six went towards Trump and the Republican Party.
[00:01:30] And the reason I think they call us a bellwether is because we kind of in this very small northwest corner of the state,
[00:01:38] replicate everything you find within the entire state of Pennsylvania.
[00:01:41] And in the last 10 major elections, that's national and statewide elections.
[00:01:47] Erie has always voted for the winner and they came through last Tuesday.
[00:01:51] Trump won here by about 2000 votes.
[00:01:54] So we were very happy. I mean, in 16, he won here and it was only 1600.
[00:01:59] He lost by 1220.
[00:02:02] But I think his message resonated this year.
[00:02:06] And I think, unfortunately, for the other side of the aisle, the economy and inflation did not help them.
[00:02:13] Those are things that people see on a daily basis and they can see the impact it was having on their own finances and the family.
[00:02:20] And I think that's what turned turned the race in favor of Donald Trump.
[00:02:26] How about the immigration?
[00:02:28] Do you think that that that issue of immigration factored into this at all?
[00:02:32] I think immigration does factor into it.
[00:02:35] In Erie County, we do have some immigration here with regard to illegal migrants, but not a whole lot.
[00:02:43] We seem to be a transient point.
[00:02:45] You know, they come through.
[00:02:47] My wife's met a couple of buses once in a while at Walmart and they come through, pick up stuff and then they're gone.
[00:02:53] There was a couple of years ago, right after Biden took office, they flew some midnight flights in here and they were mostly young teenage girls.
[00:03:05] And unfortunately, many of them were unfortunately pregnant at the time.
[00:03:09] And then when our congressmen began to look into it, they just disappeared.
[00:03:13] We don't know where they went or whatever happened to them.
[00:03:16] And then there was a college in the eastern part of our county, which is called Northeast.
[00:03:23] They had this Mercyhurst College had an extension there.
[00:03:27] It was a beautiful campus.
[00:03:28] And they were planning on bringing in immigrant families into there.
[00:03:32] But then that was stopped very quickly by a gentleman out of Pittsburgh that bought it and made it into a veterans rehabilitation center.
[00:03:39] So the immigration issue that we have is nothing more than legal immigrants coming here.
[00:03:47] It's one way in which it seems like the city of Erie is been losing population for at least 20 years or more.
[00:03:54] And they're trying to regain that population by bringing an immigrant community into it.
[00:03:59] But, you know, those are hardworking people that came here illegally and nobody has a problem with that.
[00:04:05] I don't think I've ever talked to anybody who has a problem with immigration.
[00:04:07] Their problem is with people jumping the line, you might say, and coming here and not going through the full process and the vetting process.
[00:04:18] I agree with you 100 percent on that.
[00:04:21] No one has a problem with immigration, but it's the illegal immigration.
[00:04:25] I like what you said, jumping the line.
[00:04:28] And I've been to many ceremonies where folks have waited for years to get legal citizenship.
[00:04:35] And we celebrate it.
[00:04:37] And I thought, you know, I think that's just tragic that other folks can just bypass that whole process.
[00:04:45] But that is an issue.
[00:04:47] And again, the economy was definitely an issue.
[00:04:49] Can you talk about some of the other successes of your election day for you specifically?
[00:04:56] Well, I think our big successes.
[00:04:58] We had a great ground game.
[00:05:00] We had three young people here that was working actually for the Trump campaign out of our office.
[00:05:06] And they ran an outstanding operation.
[00:05:11] You know, if my recollection is that after the 2020 election, Trump realized that he had to look at what he did in 2020 other than, you know, maybe the potential for fraudulent votes.
[00:05:23] That was, you know, that was over, in my opinion.
[00:05:27] So his team went back and looked at the campaign and realized they really didn't do much in a ground game.
[00:05:34] And so they put a lot of effort into the ground game, not only in Pennsylvania.
[00:05:37] I mean, there was, I think they had 17 sites throughout the state in 17 different counties in which they had people that were hired to work on a ground game.
[00:05:48] And they wouldn't work just in that one county.
[00:05:51] Like the people that were here, they were working in Erie County, but they also worked in Warren County, which is east of us, and Mercer County and Crawford County, which is south.
[00:06:00] So there was four counties that they controlled.
[00:06:02] And every week, I'd come here on a Tuesday night, they had 20, 30 people in here making phone calls.
[00:06:10] They were either, in some cases, writing postcards, personal postcards to people.
[00:06:16] And then they would organize for the weekend to go out and knock on doors.
[00:06:20] So the ground game, I felt, really changed for the first time since I've been here to being very extensive.
[00:06:27] And I think that obviously helps, you know, the old adage is if I get 10 friends to vote the way I want them to vote, you know, that's 10, not just one.
[00:06:39] And then I always tell the people, then get those 10 to vote for 10 people.
[00:06:43] And that's kind of what they were doing.
[00:06:45] It was almost like a pyramid effect.
[00:06:47] They'd get 10 people, get those people to get 10 people.
[00:06:50] And then they just kept growing throughout the course of the election.
[00:06:53] And they were doing this for probably about three months.
[00:06:56] Did you find a lot of outside support, folks coming in from other parts of the country or other cities?
[00:07:05] Yeah, I had.
[00:07:06] I mean, I'd be sitting here and all of a sudden somebody would show up at my office and say, Ron, from Buffalo, New York.
[00:07:11] And I says, good.
[00:07:13] And then what can I do?
[00:07:15] They want to know what they could do.
[00:07:16] And so we had people from not only other states, but also other counties coming here.
[00:07:22] And I think it was because there was so much attention on Erie County in Pennsylvania as being this, again, Bellwether County.
[00:07:30] And they felt that if Erie wins, we'll win.
[00:07:34] And so they were migrating here to help us.
[00:07:36] And and and they did.
[00:07:38] And we appreciate all that help.
[00:07:41] It really is important because Erie County.
[00:07:46] Registration wise is has about close to 10,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.
[00:07:52] But the funny part about that is two years ago, it was 20,000 difference.
[00:07:58] So there was a huge shift in our county with regard to registrations.
[00:08:03] And I think that also played a big part.
[00:08:06] Oh, that's that was really mentioned during the news that I kind of followed that, that.
[00:08:15] Republicans were doing a great job in terms of registering new voters all across Pennsylvania.
[00:08:21] So I think that without a doubt, that made a difference.
[00:08:24] And I think that a lot of people overlook the ground game of the Republicans.
[00:08:29] And I think that actually led to a lot of surprises, especially with the lands, the sweep of all of the swing states.
[00:08:40] Yeah, I do.
[00:08:41] I think, you know, when they talk about the Democratic ground game, I know here in Erie County, you know, the Democrats, they seem to come up with a lot of money all the time.
[00:08:50] But everybody that goes out is paid.
[00:08:53] They they get students and they pay students.
[00:08:55] And we just don't have those resources.
[00:08:57] So every one of our individuals that went out went out as a volunteer.
[00:09:02] And I always kind of say jokingly that, you know, if somebody is going out because of what's in their heart, they'll work a little bit harder than if it's just something being paid to them.
[00:09:11] So I think our ground game, I don't know if it was equal to theirs in terms of numbers, but I think in terms of the excitement and the energy that our volunteers put into it was above the Democratic Party.
[00:09:25] What advice would you give from this past election experience and cycle?
[00:09:31] What advice would you give to other party chairs or county chairs?
[00:09:35] Well, I think it's I really think the ground game is extremely important.
[00:09:40] You know.
[00:09:41] Next elections in that, like we have one starting in January, we start all over again.
[00:09:48] And the excitement probably among the populace won't be as much because Donald Trump's not there and it's not a presidential election.
[00:09:55] And a lot of people, they don't look at local elections as being as important, but they are probably more important than the national elections because decisions made on a local level, whether it be the county council or whether it be school boards, those decisions usually impact the populace immediately.
[00:10:12] And so I think getting out and talking to people and getting other people to do the same is critical, is just critical.
[00:10:22] You know, people unfortunately have a tendency to be have a habit of watching a certain television station and the news off of that station and which means they may only get one side.
[00:10:34] And if you go out there and knock on a door and you're polite and you're, you know, treat them properly, I think people will listen.
[00:10:43] And and sometimes it'll make a difference.
[00:10:46] I think my wife, I can give you an example.
[00:10:49] My wife was talking to this woman that lives up the road from us.
[00:10:53] And she said up until Election Day, she was not sure who she was going to vote for yet.
[00:10:58] And and she had talked to my wife several times.
[00:11:01] And and she said, you know, talking to you and you give me some things I didn't know about changed my mind and I voted for Trump.
[00:11:10] So that that personal connection, I think, is critical.
[00:11:14] Well, without a doubt, that really contributed to the success of this election.
[00:11:21] Well, is there anything that you'd like to tell our audience before we close here?
[00:11:26] And we thank you for being our first guest on Keeping America First.
[00:11:30] Well, I appreciate you asking me to come.
[00:11:33] And, you know, the one thing I tell people is that don't consider your vote not that important.
[00:11:39] Every vote really, really counts.
[00:11:42] And, you know, a lot of people will go into it like for us in this next election.
[00:11:47] I think we had in some of the precincts, we had 90 percent turnout.
[00:11:52] And I'm sure in the next election will probably be down under 50.
[00:11:56] But again, people need to realize that all elections are important and they make a difference in the community depending on who gets elected.
[00:12:06] And if you want a certain your community, I guess, maybe go in a certain direction, whether it be right or left, you've got to get out there at the polls and make your voice heard.
[00:12:16] And that's what's important.
[00:12:18] Thank you, Tom, for all the work that you do.
[00:12:21] Tom Eddy, chairman of the Erie County PA GOP.
[00:12:26] We thank you for being with us again.
[00:12:28] Tom, we're going to stay in touch with you.
[00:12:30] OK, that's fine.
[00:12:31] And I've enjoyed my conversations with you.
[00:12:35] And and.
[00:12:37] Hey, it's it's it's a group effort.
[00:12:40] It's not just one county or anything like that.
[00:12:43] I mean, Trump won as a result of winning the entire country.
[00:12:46] And that's what you've got to do if you if you want to be successful.
[00:12:50] You've got to work together.
[00:12:51] So thank you very much for having me.
[00:12:53] And not to mention winning every demographic.
[00:12:57] Yeah.
[00:12:58] And that's an increase and increase with every demographic.
[00:13:02] Yeah.
[00:13:02] And that means that he's he has done one thing that's never been able to do be done before.
[00:13:07] And he's changed the face of the Republican Party.
[00:13:10] You know, I think he's a common sense guy.
[00:13:13] You know, he might be rich, but he's common sense and he thinks about the people.
[00:13:17] And that's what's important.
[00:13:19] Absolutely.
[00:13:20] Again, thank you, Tom.
[00:13:21] And we're going to have you back sometime.
[00:13:23] Have a great day.
[00:13:25] OK, you have a good one, too.
[00:13:26] And have a happy holidays.
[00:13:28] Thank you.