85% of Fulton County voted for Trump, but that's not how people there define themselves

By: CBS News' Seth Kaplan

MCCONNELLSBURG, Pa. (KDKA) - It's not a stretch to say right now – days before polls open – that Mastriano and Oz will win Fulton County, in southcentral Pennsylvania. And it won't be close. 

U.S. Senate candidates John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz are statistically tied in recent polls. And although polls indicate Josh Shapiro is leading Doug Mastriano, no responsible news organization will characterize that race either until many votes have actually been counted. 

Among the state's 67 counties, no other county voted as enthusiastically in 2020 for former President Donald Trump. Fully 85 percent of Fulton County voters filled in the bubble next to Trump's name. 

Sure enough, those people weren't hard to find. In fact, forget 2020: Daniel Nazelrod – a lifelong resident of McConnellsburg, the county seat – is already hoping he'll get a chance to vote for Trump in 2024. 

"He's smart," Nazelrod said of the former president. "He has a lot of good ideas." 

To state the obvious: If 85 percent voted for Trump, that does mean 15 percent – a little more than 1,000 people in the county – didn't. CBS News met two of them outside a supermarket on the edge of McConnellsburg. 

But Jamie Greathead, publisher of the weekly Fulton County News – the only newspaper published within the county – said what's important to understand is that the other 85 percent don't agree on everything, either. 

"It is very Trumpy," Greathead said of Fulton County. "And that extends to his endorsed candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano" of neighboring Franklin County. 

"But there are still lots of Reagan conservatives as well as the Trump people," Greathead said. 

The difference? The county's Reagan conservatives – or "blue-suit Republicans," as Greathead also described them – generally voted for Trump and were disappointed with the 2020 election result but accepted it, whereas the Trump conservatives believe the election was stolen. 

But more broadly, Greathead said it's just as important to understand something else about Fulton County, which he said has a new 911 call center and a new and expanding hospital. 

"People work together," he said. "People get things done. I think our county is more community-minded than it is politically-minded."