They Were Hectored by MAGA. They Showed Up for Harris Anyway.
Bob and Kristina Lange saw hate mail and threats pour in after they cut a video for the vice president. They spoke at her rally on Wednesday.
Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania
INSIDE THE THEATER at Washington Crossing Historic Park, Robert “Bob” Lange carefully wrote a note on lined paper to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Lange, with his wife Kristina, had earlier endorsed Harris in an online campaign ad. It was a viral hit, so much so that the MAGA right was sure the Langes were “actors.” Trolly internet sleuths incorrectly declared that the Langes were Democratic plants, pointing to another man named Bob Lange. Hate mail and threats followed.
It was disorienting for Bob, who is a Republican elected official, the chair of the board of supervisors in Willistown Township, about an hour west of Washington Crossing. Kristina called the MAGA onslaught exhausting. But they showed up on Wednesday to support Harris nevertheless.
I asked Bob what he is writing.
He was nervous. He told me that the letter explained to Vice President Harris the ordeal his family has been put through since cutting the ad. He explained a bit about some of the backlash in the days immediately after it first aired.
But then things changed. People started coming to his Sugartown Strawberries Farm to buy something and offer thanks. Kristina recounted a story about a woman who remarked to her: “I don’t even like mums!” when checking out with not one, but two mum plants. She had come simply to support the Langes for speaking up.
In the theater, there was a motley crew of Republican Never Trumpers. The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol joked with me that, at some point in the past nine years, he had probably been with every single person there at some Never Trump function. I replied that it’ll likely become something of a quadrennial event, as not many were optimistic that the GOP was turning things around any time soon. This cycle, the gathering was on the banks of the Delaware River, where the crowd awaited Harris’s arrival for a “Country Over Party” campaign event.
I was there because I am a signatory of the Republican Campaign Alumni for Harris endorsement letter. A number of former elected officials, like Barbara Comstock, Mickey Edwards, and Chris Shays stood on the dais. Geoff Duncan, Olivia Troye, and Adam Kinzinger were there, too, as warm up acts.
But it was the Langes who were given the honor of introducing Harris onstage and live on national network television. That helped explain Bob’s nerves—not just the fact that he was opening for the vice president but the likelihood that doing so would reignite all of the threats he and his wife had received. Sadly, MAGA rarely moves on, even after the conspiracies they gravitate to are debunked.
The Langes each brought a printed copy of a speech they had previously written at home. Their words were sort of an extended version, raw and uncut, of their web ad:
“I should make a note Kristina was ahead of the learning curve. She only voted for [Trump] once,” Bob quipped to a chuckling audience.
Bob backed Trump twice. But his mind changed after January 6th.
“I watched in horror as that went down. The guy encouraged a violent mob to storm the Capitol and then sat back and did nothing, and attempted to overturn a free and fair election,” he said. “Just this week, he called for the unleashing of the U.S. military on American citizens who he called ‘the enemy within.’ That is dangerous language.”
The weather was more than cooperative, with the fall foliage on display on a very crisp autumn day. Security was tight on both sides of the Delaware. Harris stayed around for a while. After shaking hands with attendees, she left to record her interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier on site.
Harris’s campaign had picked the location for a reason. It’s where George Washington spent the night before crossing into New Jersey in December 1776—his ragged 2,400 troops ready to change the tide of the war.
I wondered, in jest, if there was some commonality with Harris wanting to beat bad guys in a red uniform. But the vice president had something a little more high-minded in store:
I think everyone here knows we meet in a place that holds a very very special meaning for our country. Here on Christmas night, 1776, General George Washington and over 2,000 troops crossed the icy Delaware River in darkness then marched to Trenton where they surprised an outpost of enemy soldiers and achieved a major victory in the American Revolution.
And after we won the war and achieved our independence, delegates from across the nation gathered not far from here in Philadelphia to write and to sign the Constitution of the United States. And we remember and reflect on what that moment was, knowing that leading up to that work to write to compose the Constitution of the United States.
That work was not easy. The Founders often disagreed, often quite passionately, but in the end, the Constitution of the United States laid out the foundations of our democracy—including the rule of law, that there would be checks and balances. That we would have free and fair elections and a peaceful transfer of power. And these principles and traditions have sustained our nation for over two centuries—sustained because generations of Americans from all backgrounds, from all beliefs, have cherished them, upheld them, and defended them.
And now the baton is in our hands, so I am joined today by over one hundred Republican leaders from across Pennsylvania and across our country who are supporting my candidacy for president of the United States, and I am deeply honored to have their support.
I wasn’t too far off after all!
After the event, I briefly caught up with Bob and Kristina. They were smiling ear to ear as Vice President Harris shook hands with them on the rope line. I wondered how their photo experience went, as campaigns typically try to discourage people from giving the candidate anything tangible.
Bob shook his head with a nod. “Good,” he said as a friend came over to congratulate them. I got the sense that a weight had been lifted—that there was something deeply personal for him in choosing to cross the aisle and vote Democratic.
Earlier in the day, he had explained it as such:
I thought he’d fight for people like us, but it’s clear Donald Trump doesn’t care about helping hardworking people, and he certainly doesn’t care about our Commonwealth and our constitution. He only cares about what’s good for him.
Vice President Harris may or may not end up winning. But it was smart of her to give Bob the megaphone.