Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris takes a selfie with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and his wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman after greeting supporters at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria Airport on September 13, 2024 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WILKES-BARRE — Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has spent most of the last two weeks in Pennsylvania starting with a Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh, where she returned a few days later to hunker down for debate prep. She debated former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president, in Philadelphia on Tuesday, and on Friday she campaigned in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, two areas that have swung Republican in recent elections.
“I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I’m listening as much as we are talking,” Harris said during the Johnstown visit, according to pool reports. “And ultimately I feel very strongly that you’ve got to earn every vote, and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live. And so that’s why I’m here and we’re going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania.”
Luzerne County, where Wilkes-Barre is located. was once a Democratic stronghold, and is near President Joe Biden’s childhood hometown of Scranton. But Hillary Clinton lost the county by nearly 20 points in 2016, and Trump beat Biden but nearly 15 points in 2020.
Harris touched on familiar themes in her address to the audience at the McHale Athletic Center at Wilkes University, praising small business owners as the “backbone of America’s economy,” pledging to protect reproductive rights, and reiterating that her campaign for president was informed by her middle-class background.
“People sometimes just need the opportunity, because we as Americans do not lack for ambition, for aspiration, for dreams, for the preparedness to do hard work,” Harris said. She said if elected, her economic plan calls for building 3 million new homes by the end of her first term, and said she would take on corporate price-gouging, and expand the child tax credit.
Harris also said she would “get rid of unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs to increase jobs for folks without a four year degree” and would “challenge the private sector to do the same.”
She referred to the Tuesday debate with Trump, when the former president said he had the “concepts of a plan” to replace the Affordable Care Act, something he tried and failed to do during his term in office.
“So let’s just think about this for a moment,” she said to jeers and laughter from the audience. “He’s going to threaten health insurance for the 45 million people who rely on it based on a ‘concept.’” Trump’s plan, she added, is Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for remaking the federal government, from which Trump has tried to distance himself, claiming he wasn’t involved with it.
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Harris was interrupted briefly by protesters during her roughly 20-minute speech in Wilkes-Barre; but shouts of “war criminal” and “free Palestine” were drowned out by supporters chanting “Kamala.”“Listen, now is the time to get a hostage deal and a cease-fire and we have been working around the clock to get that done,” Harris said in response to the protesters, “and I respect your voice, but right now I am speaking.”
Stacie New of nearby Kingston was impressed with the way Harris handled the protesters.
“She was like, ‘I value your opinion, you should have a voice, but now is not the time,’” she said. To New, the episode proved Harris’ leadership, pointing out the vice president’s abilities to think on the fly and be respectful.
“She can take into consideration other people’s opinions while trying to get her message out,” New said.
Harris also reiterated her stance that she and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are the underdogs in the 2024 election, and that much more was at stake than in previous elections.
“This is not 2016 or 2020: the stakes are even higher than they were then, because two months ago, the United States Supreme Court essentially told the former president that he will effectively be immune no matter what he does if he gets back into the White House,” she said.
More than three hours before Harris’ arrival, King’s College seniors Megan Mitola and Jackson Marcantonio huddled underneath the giant, bright blue Harris/Walz sign. They smiled while waiting for their picture to be taken.
“I think our generation could swing the election,” said Marcantonio, a Bethlehem native attending his first political rally.
Mitola, a Long Island native, plans on becoming an education lawyer and said she is counting on a Harris administration to protect students and educators. A win for Trump scares her, she said, which is why she wants to see as many of her generation registered to vote as possible.
“I think whoever wins Pa. is going to win because it’s a swing state,” she said. “This is a college environment, and I think we have a lot of kids who can register in a swing state that might be a blue state.”
Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown was the first speaker, taking the stage shortly after 5 p.m. “She does not insult people who disagree with her, she listens to them,” Brown said of Harris.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) who is in his own reelection bid, praised Harris’ debate performance.
”As we saw in the debate the other night, she is ready to take on Donald Trump and win this election,” Casey said.
Gov. Josh Shapiro expressed a similar sentiment, after a raucous greeting from the audience.
“She is tough as nails, and she’s got a big heart, and she is someone who doesn’t play,” he said of Harris. “We saw that the other night in the debate, right?”
During the visit to Johnstown earlier on Friday, Harris visited a book store and a cafe, accompanied by Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and his wife Gisele. A Democratic presidential candidate has not won Cambria County, where Johnstown is located, since 2008, when Barack Obama edged out John McCain. Mitt Romney beat Obama here in 2012, and Trump won Cambria County 2016 and 2020.
Trump spoke to reporters Friday at the Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles, pledging to carry out “the largest deportation in the history of our country.”
The vice president will be back in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, when she is scheduled to sit for an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia.