Lithuanian-Americans are traditionally Republican voters, having favoured the party’s stronger anti-communist stance during the Cold War and carrying on the legacy to this day. It is these “traditional” Republicans that the campaign of Democrat Kamala Harris is now trying to win over.
In Baltimore, the Lithuanian-American community has a century-long history. Henry, one of its members, speaks to LRT TV outside a building that has been owned by the Lithuanian community for more than a hundred years.
“The pilots Darius and Girėnas visited Baltimore at least six times. Three Baltimore Lithuanian societies sponsored their flight,” says Henry Gaidis in reference to the legendary duo who flew over the Atlantic in their self-made aircraft Lituanica in 1933.
Henry’s grandfather was the one who migrated from Lithuania to the US and settled in Baltimore. The family has been dutiful voters in American elections.
“Both my grandfather and my dad were Republicans because they owned businesses. If you were a businessman, you were a Republican. If you were a factory worker, you were probably a Democrat,” explains Gaidis.
He will not break with family tradition this time either and will vote Republican.
“I’m an avid gun collector. I have voted against the Republicans twice: both times they supported gun confiscation,” says the Lithuanian-American.
Henry supports Donald Trump because he is convinced that the former president is the one who has strengthened NATO.
“He has nothing against Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Because we pay our fair share. But there are other countries that don’t pay. How can he not be angry then? Why do I, as an American, have to pay for another country?” says Gaidis.
Appeal in Pennsylvania
It is voters like Henry – traditional Republicans who might feel ambivalent about Trump’s somewhat untraditional style – that the campaign of Democrat Kamala Harris would like to lure over to her side.
In a conservative district of Pennsylvania, several Republican voters say they cannot support Trump.
“The America First movement has moved away from the Republicans and has become an extreme group. I still consider myself a Republican, but I cannot support a movement that does not adhere to human decency,” says Mark Lopatin, a voter in Pennsylvania.
With Trump and Harris almost evenly matched in the polls, every ballot could be decisive.
Nationally, Harris has failed to build up a lead in the polls over Trump and is now trying, in an unusual move in American politics, to appeal directly to Republicans. She sat for an interview with Fox News, a network that supports Trump, and addressed a group of her Republican supporters in Pennsylvania.
“In a typical election year, you all being here with me might be a bit surprising, dare I say unusual,” she said, chuckling, at a campaign event in Bucks County last week, “but not in this election.”
The Democrats’ main message is that Trump is a threat to the American democracy.
But the Republicans who accept the message are a minority – according to surveys, most of them see the events of January 6, 2021, not as a coup attempt but as an ordinary protest.
“I don’t believe in the theory that he [Trump] was trying to stop the last election,” says Henry Gaidis from Baltimore. “This is what the Democrats keep saying, but I don’t think it’s true.”
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