Pennsylvania Democrats Build a New Harris Coalition
VALLEY FORGE – Democrats executing on plans to pull more votes for Kamala Harris in rural areas, and to galvanize groups that Joe Biden might not have reached in quite the same way, also continue to work on blue collar Building Trades members, building on a classic turnout model in this gritty battleground state. Against that backdrop, the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee on Saturday night honored the Southeast Philadelphia leadership of the pipe trades, and the president of the Pennsylvania ALF-CIO at a big convention center party committee event.
It looks like the very bulldozed heart of America here, where the ghosts of Continental soldiers tread in the same wilderness-conquered mist that envelopes a massive golf course and casino. The vision of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan competes with the pig iron environs of Issac Potts. Hustlers’ highways intersect with the National Patriots Bell Tower. If the GOP put up a bone-spur-riddled presidential candidate who called dead American soldiers “suckers and losers,” the Democrats on this evening populate the Stardust Casino, which fashions the phantasmagorias of a Trump-like world for supposedly “everyday folk.”
They came to King of Prussia to defeat a Republican nominee who wants to be the King of Prussia under the guise of the American presidency.
But they know winning Pennsylvania for the Harris-Walz ticket entails an unprecedented level of
commitment as Harris seeks this state’s 19 critical electoral votes. Remember, Harris’ predecessor, sitting President Biden, a native son of the Keystone State, won here by just a hair over a single percentage point: 3,458,229 to 3,377,674, or 50.01% to 48.84%.
Statistically tied with Trump in Pa, how does Harris win a state barely carried by a guy from Scranton?
Pennsylvania Democratic State Party Chairman Sharif Street has some ideas. More than ideas at this point. He’s in battle mode. Earlier in the evening, the chairman spoke at a rally for women supporters of Harris-Walz in another corner of the hotel and casino. Later, he powwowed with party faithful fundraisers in the convention center and presided at a ceremony anchored by the guest presence of Maya Harris (pictured, top), sister of the Democratic nominee for President.
“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz brought a level of enthusiasm that’s helpful,” Street told InsiderNJ.
“Some of what we’ve historically done is certainly still there. We’ve got a tremendous amount of energy in traditionally Democratic areas like Philadelphia and Montgomery County and Alleghany County, but they [Harris-Walz] have made a real effort to reach out to rural areas. We have Obama Trump voters. These are people who voted for Barack Obama twice and then Trump in 2016 [Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Pa. that year – barely – 48.18% to 47.46%]. We’ve got some of those people back because of the efforts of Harris and Walz. They’re also going to bring back young people. Each election is unique but they are bringing back some of the Obama-like magic. It’s special. Harris and Walz do it in such a upbeat and joyous way while Donald Trump [campaigning in Butler on this day with Elon Musk] is so viscerally negative and hateful. They contrast themselves but not in a way that divides us. Donald Trump makes us feel bad about our country, ourselves, and our neighbors. They are bringing back positivity to politics.”
But what about the labor piece, in particular male-dominated Building Trades labor? The Biden-Harris Administration has poured $400 billion into infrastructure projects, giving the Building Trades ten years’ worth of jobs here in Pennsylvania, a point Jimmy Williams, General President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, made at a labor rally earlier in the day. But while Harris enjoys a 15-percentage point lead over Trump nationally on economic issues, an NPR-PBS News-Marist survey shows the gender gap widening in this presidential contest. According to that poll, “nearly 6 in 10 men, 57 percent, supported Trump, while 41 percent backed the vice president. Harris led the ex-president with women, amassing 58 percent support to Trump’s 40 percent.”
Street hears the word on the street, and he knows they’re going to need a heavy labor street presence and street smarts to settle in their favor the colliding Trump-Harris roadshows.
“Tonight we’re [the Democratic party] honoring Pa. AFL-CIO President Angela Ferrito, and all three Southeast Philadelphia pipe trades leaders Jimmy Snell [Steamfitters #420, Secretary-Treasurer], Wayne Miller [Sprinkler Fitters #692], and George Pegram [Plumbers #690], who are really critical in helping to secure a hydrogen hub,” said the chairman. “That is a way we’re creating strong union jobs while shrinking our carbon footprint. Donald Trump always casts it as in order to shrink the carbon footprint we have to sacrifice jobs and burn the planet. The reality is we can do both and our tradesmen understand that.”
Mike Veon, a campaign adviser and political consultant to Democrats and Labor, broke down Harris’ Pennsylvania path to victory.
“We understand Kamala Harris is not going to do as well as Joe Biden in Northeastern Pennsylvania – in Scranton, in Lackawanna County and those other counties, there’s no question about that,” said Veon. “Joe Biden had votes from older white men that are probably not available to her. However, in the center of the state, there is great evidence that she can exceed Joe Biden’s margins, in places like Lancaster. She will do a couple points better there, and in places like Dauphin County. We’re seeing that in our door knocking data and in our phone banking data.”
Trump’s Supreme Court picks, which scrapped Roe v. Wade certainly especially newly galvanizes women voters in this election for Harris, who seek reproductive freedom protections.
“It [Harris campaign energy] starts with women and even with some of the younger voters,” Veon said. “It’s a different coalition that what Biden had – a slightly different coalition. We’ve been encouraged by smaller counties where Joe Biden got 20%, for example. Activist Democrats in those areas understand their mission is to do one or two percent more what he received in 2020. That’s doable. You can’t win in rural parts, but you can do one or two percent better. Joe Biden won the state by one percent. There are about 9,000 precincts in the state.” They add ten votes per precinct, and they bypass Biden’s margin from last time. “Any Democrat anywhere can add votes to their precinct totals,” said Veon. “We have them laser focused on that doable mission.”
Take rural Westmoreland County, for example, which borders Alleghany in the west, a part of the state still reeling from 20th Century deindustrialization. Trump won Westmoreland in 2020, 130K to 72K.
“We’re seeing extraordinary enthusiasm,” said Westmoreland Democratic Committee Chair Michele Milan-McFall, a newly elected member of the Democratic National Committee. “We were seeing 150% more volunteers, even before Joe Biden passed the torch to Kamala Harris. This is not just volunteers but people making contributions. We’re seeing Republicans coming in on a regular basis.” If Northeast Philly Dems are tearing their hair out over Fox News-rattled members, Milan-McFall sees significant breakaways by Trump-reviling Republicans in her home county.
Honored by Democrats Saturday night as the history-making first female president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Angela Ferrito, said it finally comes down to voter turnout, that old indomitable campaigns and elections subjugator. “We’ve really ramped up our entire program across the state,” Ferrito told InsiderNJ. “What does that mean? It means knocking on doors, conversations in the workplace, and an aggressive mail campaign. We’re across the entire state operating out of central labor councils, with more work happening in targeted areas. Obviously, the top of the ballot is most important. We’re doing our work every day to get out to members so they can hear about the issues that impact them and how policy impacts those issues – and politicians have the ultimate say on those policies. We want voting members to remember that we are all in this together and everything we do for this movement we do through the lens of a better tomorrow. We need to protect what we have as union members so more of our friends and family can prosper and exercise their rights to become union.”
In the tangle of highways where the craps tables dead end on the Daughters of the American Revolution-funded bell tower in the shadow of the Stardust Casino, confluences beyond the cynical drive believers on the battleground state march to Nov. 5th, 2024.
That’s why the black community in the Philadelphia area is leaving the Democrat Party. If one reads the article, one would assume President Trump is losing badly. That’s not the case at all. The article is more propaganda from a Communist propagandist in Max Pizarro. The statistics he cites don’t add up. Trump is winning the entire state by 3-4 points (depending on which poll you look at) and that number is beginning to widen with less than 4 weeks to go until the election.
Trump had over 100,000 people show up at his re-rally in Butler, PA, where Trump was almost assassinated back in July. Trump made sure that those who attended his first rally and were abruptly interrupted by a government-paid rookie assassin, would be able to see him once again. The entire rally was spectacular and well-done. It shows that Trump knows how to be a leader and get things done. He drove home the fact that Kabala Harris is going to destroy the fracking and drilling industries in Pennsylvania, ultimately putting 100,000 people out of work, including ancillary businesses that support the industries, like restaurants, parts companies, hotel and housing industries, etc.
So, the small Democrat contingent that met at the Starlight Hotel showed abject weakness. Democrat leaders say they have the building trades leaders and AFL-CIO leaders behind them. So what???? The rank-and-file, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands don’t support Kabala Harris and the Democrats. They are the ones that have kitchen table issues not being addressed by the Democrats, e.g., grocery & gasoline prices skyrocketing due to Democrat-made inflation; high mortgage interest rates basically depriving middle class from purchasing homes or even renting apartments, which have reached historically high rents; no security from ILLEGAL ALIENS attacking, murdering, raping Americans and their children, and Democrats lying about fracking, mining and drilling, which comprises a large swath of western Pennsylvania.
After watching Kamala Kabala giving out $750 checks to Hurricane victims while wearing a $770 leather belt around her waste, she and her Democrat ilk are telling us Americans to “eat cake”. I say it’s time to bring out the guillotines.
When former President Trump tossed paper towel rolls at a San Juan church after Hurricane Maria in 2017, it’s too bad that elderly actor James Wood wasn’t there to post a price for any of Trump’s clothing on social media, whether he wore it around his waist or otherwise..
You need to stop watching propaganda from fox. No immigrants are entering the border right now. The border is closed. As for the 750 dollars that’s just the automatic money that’s given before it’s assessed how many thousands they can receive. Trump had it at 500.
Black voters that vote for Trump because they are attracted to the mysogyny, and frankly are just tapdancers. Look at the “black nazi” Robinson that’s running for governor of NC, they did away with him fairly quickly.
As a republican I will vote for Kamala Harris, and hope for a better nominee in 2028.
I now have regrets about calling the actor James Woods elderly. At 77 years of age, he is only a year shy of former President Trump, who if elected might well be a spry 82 years old by the end of his term. Spry-tan.