Appalachian Voters: 'Kamala Harris Is Undeniably Smart'

For the first time in more than a decade, 35-year-old graduate student Annalee Toll Lanier woke up feeling hopeful.

It's dawn In the southern part of the Appalachian Mountains and a new morning in American politics.

Annaleigh Toll Lanier called current President Joe Biden's decision to step down from his campaign to make way for Vice President Kamala Harris “patriotic.”

“It was the best thing that could have ever happened,” says Toll Lanier. Harris accomplished more as vice president than most people realize—on women’s rights, on health insurance, on education.

– I think she could also entice some Republican women to vote Democratic in the fall elections.

Here in the south In the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States, the presidential election campaign suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

Part of the battle for power and reality is happening here, in the green hills where American country music was born.

J.D. Vance—Donald Trump's new vice presidential nominee—is known as the great contemporary advocate for human distress in the Appalachians.

His best-selling coming-of-age novel, Hillbilly Elegy, from 2016, painted a picture of a village and a people who have lost their direction and ability to self-actualize.

Admittedly, Kamala Harris is from California on the other coast.

But she's right. Annalee Toll Lanier believes this person offers a narrative about America that can contrast with Vance's strong focus on the individual in his diagnosis of the crisis of the American working class, which Trump and Vance focus on.

“It’s not the individual’s fault that she got lost in the Appalachians. It’s about things like educational opportunity and quality of education, and Harris did a lot behind the scenes as vice president,” says Annaleigh Toll Lanier.

She returns to her iced coffee and her screen – she is writing a doctoral thesis on the importance of dance in the culture of the mountain range.

Chris Casey, a 43-year-old father of four, is also thrilled.

The IT executive has three daughters at home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Who will avenge Hillary Clinton's crushing loss to Trump in 2016, the father hopes and believes.

And in that election the glass ceiling would finally shatter into a thousand pieces. That never happened. Clinton was maneuvered away by the “dirty hole” in Casey’s eyes: the episode involving the private email server.

Harris is more important Chris Casey thinks he's more resilient than Clinton.

“I think she can offer a vision for the future of America that actually has a chance to unite,” he said.

Even Republican voters in Appalachia — like tattooed surfboard salesman Edward Miller — seem reluctantly curious about Kamala Harris.

The 46-year-old is certainly not going to let Trump down in this fall's general election, but he's willing to listen.

– I've never heard of it. – Crafting a coherent political message. There were plenty of laughs on her part. But she has undeniable intelligence, and seems well-deserved of her new position as leader of the Democratic Party.

In fact, Edward Miller intended to shut down politics altogether. But after the assassination attempt on Trump, and the nomination of Vance and Harris to take the torch in the Democrats, it suddenly became a game in America again.

105 more days Match day “I’m not going to go out,” Miller says, smiling as he steps out into the light morning rain in Appalachia.

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Kamala Harris is used to attacks from both the right and the left.