Gracious goodness, it seems there's been a disturbance in the force.
Rumor has it that Pennsylvania is not only looking shaky for Harris, it's looking so bad that the campaign has to call in reinforcements from elsewhere.
About a week ago, a Milwaukee talk radio host named Dan O'Donnell broke word that Harris would pull resources out of the city and specifically them to switch to PA.
Now, that in itself seemed strange since the Kamala campaign was encountering issues in what should be a locked-on blue city in WI. To my mind, it sure goes against conventional wisdom to abandon turf that traditionally should be yours.
Anyone else notice the sports leagues (esp NBA) and its athletes have been fairly quiet about the election? In years past it was nonstop "go vote". Obviously low propensity late deciding young males are going to favor Trump, so they don't want people to go out and vote anymore.
— Uncle Joe 🐶🐱🇺🇸 (@ThaGodofMan) October 10, 2024
But considering the type of trouble the Harris bunch was running into in Milwaukee, maybe it made sense not to spend any more money there when they thought it could be put to better use elsewhere. Pick your poison, I guess.
She's also canceling appearances, with only one today on tap in the state when she'd had three scheduled previously.
Lack of enthusiasm? God knows they've got the money.
This bodes ill.
LOL..couldn't find enough people to bus in...LOL!!!!
— Bill Keller (@LivePrayer) October 16, 2024
So, there is less Kamala in person and on the TV and radio.
But, good grief, she's so toxic to black men that they have to send it to Philly for hip-hop station airtime?
HOLY SMOKES
I take it you hadn't heard the recent story about her campaign hq and the flying table incident.
— Grune🇺🇸 (@DerGruneMann) October 16, 2024
AND WHAT'S THIS ABOUT A FLYING TABLE...
(I so love gossip. I'm going to have to track that down. Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania...)
There's nothing about flying tables in this report on the Kamala campaign's efforts in the Keystone State, but it sure doesn't sound like it's all moonlight and Dutch funnelcakes, either.
Jeez, Louise. This is a bad look if it's not just a case of Politico pre-Election-Night-loss CYA.
‘Pennsylvania is such a mess’: Inside Team Harris’ unusual levels of finger-pointing
Many of the state’s most well-connected Democrats have been worried about the operation for months.
For months? Whaddaya mean, "for months," yet no one's heard a peep about it while you told us about the continual trainwreck of the Trump campaign?
Suddenly, blue PA is a lost cause and has been all along? Well...huh.
Top Democrats in Pennsylvania are worried Vice President Kamala Harris’ operation is being poorly run in the nation’s biggest battleground state.
They say some Harris aides lack relationships with key party figures, particularly in Philadelphia and its suburbs. They complain they have been left out of events and surrogates haven’t been deployed effectively. And they’ve urged Harris staff in private meetings to do more to turn out voters of color.
Some are even pointing fingers at Harris’ Pennsylvania campaign manager, Nikki Lu, who they say lacks deep knowledge of Philadelphia, where the vice president must drive up voter turnout in order to win.
“I have concerns about Nikki Lu,” said Ryan Boyer, who, as the first Black head of the city’s influential building trades council, is one of the most powerful labor leaders in the state. “I don’t think she understands Philadelphia.”
The Harris manager doesn't "understand" Philly?
They’re already scapegoating people re PA.
— IT Guy (@ITGuy1959) October 16, 2024
“Some are even pointing fingers at Harris’ Pennsylvania campaign manager, Nikki Lu, who they say lacks deep knowledge of Philadelphia, where the vice president must drive up voter turnout in order to win.”https://t.co/suawjWqOFD
That's their story, and they're sticking to it. CYA.
I understand from what I've been seeing and hearing out of Philadelphia that a larger segment of Philly might not be open to Soothing Dem Words this year, even if the Harris manager was a local and spoke fluent Frank Rizzo.
Residents seem furious. They actually break down in tears when asked about the economy...
🔥🚨BREAKING: Black voters in Philadelphia went to NBC to emotionally express how they feel like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s America is ‘killing them.’
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) August 13, 2024
Reporter: “How hard has inflation hit you?”
Black Woman: “It's hitting me hard.”
Black Woman: “I blame the federal… pic.twitter.com/i74AHb23zv
...and, frankly, they are pretty damn uninspired by the chance to keep the remnants of the Biden-HARRIS administration in power.
Kamala Harris is holding a rally in deep blue Philadelphia, and only 68 people showed up 😂😂
— George (@BehizyTweets) July 28, 2024
Think about that the next time they come out with another fake poll
pic.twitter.com/8CvmFSEz3A
What these deep blue Philly natives are telling anyone who will listen - which the Harris campaign doesn't seem especially interested in - is that they're over the past four years. They're done with believing that one more round of voting for Democrats will change a thing, and, most importantly of all, they have a measuring stick for this election. They know what living through a Donald Trump presidency was like.
No "Crazy man Trump'll call the Army on you/Have some weed" ad buys on a hip-hop station can shake that comparison into favorable territory for Harris.
Gabriel Lopez grew up in a family of Democrats in the Kensington neighborhood of deep-blue Philadelphia. So in 2016, the first presidential election he was old enough to vote in, he picked Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
But Lopez, now 27, says his views have changed. He switched his registration to Republican this year, and he plans to vote for Trump, who’s running for president a third time.
“Democrats keep saying [Trump] is going to bring down the economy, but he was already president for four years, and taxes were lower,” Lopez said. “We’re tired of the same politics. We got a different type of guy, and the people actually love him.”
A home health aide and rideshare driver, Lopez said Democrats haven’t kept their promises to bring down prices or improve life in his community. Trump, he said, is “at least straightforward.”
Lopez embodies one of Democrats’ biggest problems in Pennsylvania: working-class voters in Philadelphia, a once reliable voting bloc for the party, have drifted right in recent years. And they’ve been disproportionately affected by rising prices over the last several years, an issue many blame Democrats for.
HE WAS ALREADY PRESIDENT FOR FOUR YEARS - PEOPLE ACTUALLY LOVE HIM
That alone should terrify the Harris campaign - terrify them.
These are the working-class citizens who would leave church to vote en masse - like the lovely lady in the video above. The kid with the trade job, all his union buddies, and the guys in the shops. These are the very backbone of the Democratic machine that once owned the city. The footsoldiers whose votes enacted the union and political bosses' agenda.
The blue-collar working class had slipped, unnoticed, from Democrats' controlling fingers through neglect until someone so unlikeable and unacceptable emerged to face a known, fondly remembered quantity. Add to that fondness the seething resentment of watching Trump being legally and repeatedly persecuted by the same regime that left them in the dust.
No ad buys are going to erase that mug shot.
Or that Butler shot.
The suburbs aren't precisely en fuego for Harris, either, even with bringing in big names for events like The Kinzinger...BARF
Rep. Adam Kinzinger opening for Vice President @KamalaHarris pic.twitter.com/JBxhOszyer
— Nikki Schwab (@NikkiSchwab) October 16, 2024
They have got to keep their margins in Philly to pull PA out of the fire.
Panicked Dem overlords who engineered this candidate coup can twist words, shout epithets and lies, throw tables, and shake it up all they want, trying every last trick and tantrum in the book to manipulate the outcome.
I don't think the folks who go to work every day to put food on the table and keep a roof over their family's head, whatever their race, color, or creed, are into that station for those old Dem song and dance numbers anymore.
They want to step it up again.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member