Dwight Schrute, swing voter?
A lighthearted look at the Pennsylvania electorate via Dunder Mifflin.
Pennsylvania is shaping up to be the critical swing state in the 2024 election. The current RealClearPolitics average in the Keystone State as of 11:00 am this morning gives Trump a +0.1 advantage. That’s not a typo; it is literally a tenth of a point. Given that Pennsylvania has the largest trove of electoral college voters amongst the battleground states, I was not surprised last night to see my CNN colleague Harry Enten pulling a Tim Russert and declaring “Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania” would be this election’s key.
David Urban, another of my CNN colleagues, knows Pennsylvania. He advised the Trump campaign on how to win there in 2016. He and I were chatting yesterday before our Sunday show panel live from the DNC when we started speculating about how the characters from the hit show The Office - famously set in Scranton - would vote in the 2024 election. The characters on the show range from business executives to the guys working in the warehouse, from cat ladies to Cornell grads, a solid cross-section of voters in oh-so-crucial Lackawanna County.
For context, Lackawanna County went for Obama over Mitt Romney by a 63-35 margin, but then only broke for Hillary Clinton over Trump by the slimmest of margins. In 2020, Biden widened the lead somewhat, winning 54% of the vote there, but with Biden now out of the race, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the county as a key bellwether for the 2024.
So we wondered: which Office characters would be the most likely to be the decisive voters in this election? After some initial loose speculation and a brief thread on X of our initial thoughts, and a reminder that our friend
tackled this same topic in 2020, I decided to enlist some of my smartest friends in helping unpack this admittedly silly question.Miraculously, a lot of them answered the call and provided me with their expert analysis. (Special shout-out to my very first respondent, a fellow pollster who shall remain nameless who simply replied to me with “lol”.) Big thanks to everyone who texted and wrote back to my very random inquiry.
And to my subscribers, I’m sorry but also you’re welcome.
Andy Bernard: Ivy League educated and won’t let you forget it. Probably writes in Mitt Romney.
Angela Martin: Obviously a Trump precinct captain, in my view. As NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt put it to me, “Angela says she isn't enthusiastic about him, but unabashedly voting Trump. Enjoys calling Harris ‘comrade Kamala’.” Her status as a prominent cat lady means she is constantly getting grief about supporting a ticket featuring JD Vance, but remains defiant.
Creed Bratton: All of my favorite responses were about Creed, and all of them suggest that he is either considering RFK Jr. or voting illegally (or both). Not hard to imagine him telling the documentary crew that he has some strange connection to the Kennedy family. Probably registered to vote in multiple states. Might be trying to crash the online panels that pollsters use in order to create polling error, just for fun. Or, I like Chris Stirewalt’s theory: “Creed is trying to sell his absentee ballot to the highest bidder on the dark web.”
Darryl Philbin: Along with Phyllis, Darryl is one of my two candidates for most critical Pennsylvania swing voter. As Liam Donovan of The Lobby Shop Pod put it in his note to me,
“If Donald Trump prevails, it will be in a large part because non-white blue collar men shifted away from the Democratic party in sufficient numbers in places like Scranton; and if Kamala Harris is to be the next President, it will be a function of her ability corral the votes of people like Darryl Philbin who were increasingly unreachable for Biden.”
Dwight Schrute: My first instinct was that Dwight is a likely RFK Jr. voter because I misremembered Dwight as an organic beet farmer. Upon further research, he specifically mentions being a non-organic farmer to Gabe, so scratch that theory. A few of my respondents put Dwight in the MAGA camp, but Cook Political Report with Amy Walter’s Amy Walter thinks RFK is still in play, classifying Dwight as a “2020 Trump voter” who is “now flirting with RFK Jr.”
Jim Halpert: Most think Jim is a soft Harris voter, mostly because he wants to make Pam happy and she seems to care about it more than he does.
Kelly Kapoor: Mindy Kaling’s hosting of the DNC notwithstanding, I don’t even know how to begin trying to classify Kelly Kapoor as a voter. As focus-group moderator extraordinaire Rich Thau put it to me, “she’s an impulsive human weather vane who is easily persuaded by the last thing she hears from someone she trusts”. I imagine her vote will have a lot to do with how she is feeling about Ryan on election day. Could also see her not being registered to vote at all.
Meredith Palmer: Not a chance she is registered to vote.
Michael Scott: I think it is highly likely that Michael is a Trump voter, entirely because I assume he watched The Apprentice religiously. I initially said that he probably has a dogeared copy of Art of the Deal, but have come around to the view proposed by a smart X user that while he probably displays a copy on his desk, “Michael will say it is his guiding light, but it is unread”. However, others made a compelling case for Michael as a possible swing voter. In the words of pollster Adam Geller, “Michael has not really tuned in to the election yet. True undecided. Was surprised to hear earlier today that Biden dropped out.”
I also enjoyed this proposed plotline for an election day themed episode: “Michael votes Trump before work (was convinced by Todd Packer); realizes by midday he should have voted Harris and recruits Dwight to go recover the ballot.”
Pam Beezly: Harris. Wants to see a female president. Volunteers in some capacity, possibly as a phone banker.
Phyllis Lapin-Vance: My other candidate for most key swing voter, a hunch that was borne out by the wide array of guesses I got about her likely affiliation. Some, like my CNN colleague Scott Jennings, felt she’d vote Trump because her husband, Bob Vance (of Vance Refrigeration) was going Trump (there’s a Vance on the ticket!), though I can see her secretly voting Harris anyway but not being happy about it.
Robert California: Responses were all over the map for him. My favorite came from my friend Kathleen who says Robert’s “definitely a bundler for Trump” angling for a sweet under-the-radar ambassadorship.
Roy Anderson: Trump, this one is easy. Though it was suggested by my friends Katherine Mangu-Ward and Jason Russell from Reason that Roy “is a stereotypical white working-class Trump voter but also wants to impress Pam, who is a Harris campaign volunteer.”
Ryan Howard: I have to believe he listens to Joe Rogan’s podcast. Ultimately leans Trump, which has downstream effects on Kelly Kapoor. Though I’m open to Chris Stirewalt’s hypothesis, which was “Ryan explains to anyone who brings it up about the futility of voting and the superiority of a parliamentary system.”
Stanley Hudson: My best guess is that Stanley is voting Harris because he can’t deal with more Trump craziness, but if asked, simply says it is none of your damn business who he is voting for. Adam Geller makes a compelling counterargument, though, for Stanley voting Trump in the end: “his most important concern is his economic outlook.”
Toby Flenderson: This explanation sounds about perfect to me: “Toby is also for Harris, a point he brings up to Pam, suggesting perhaps they could canvass together.”