Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Washington Crossing Historic Park on October 16, 2024 (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
UPPER MAKEFIELD TOWNSHIP— Joined on stage by Republican supporters at the site where George Washington crossed the Delaware, Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday delivered an address focused on unity and winning over voters from across the aisle.
“In a typical election year, you all being here with me might be a bit surprising. Dare I say unusual,” Harris, the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, said as she chuckled. “But not in this election.”
“Because at stake in this race are the Democratic ideals that our founders and generations of Americans before us have fought for,” she added. “At stake in this election is the Constitution of the United States, its very self.”
Washington Crossing Historic Park is the Bucks County site that was a pivotal scene in the Revolutionary War. Bucks is the lone purple county in Philadelphia’s suburban counties, and is expected once again to play a key role in the presidential election.
Harris pledged to work across the aisle in search of solutions, while accusing former President Donald Trump, her opponent, of not being serious about fixing the challenges the nation faces.
“Unlike Donald Trump, who frankly as we have seen cares more about running on problems than fixing problems,” she said, “I want to fix problems, which means working across the aisle. It requires working across the aisle. It requires embracing good ideas from wherever they come.”
She criticized Trump for his actions leading up to Jan. 6 and accused him of being “increasingly unstable and unhinged.” If elected, she added, Trump would “go after” journalists, non-partisan election officials, and judges he doesn’t like.
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Harris said she has pledged to appoint a Republican to her cabinet and that she would also create a “Council on Bipartisan Solutions.” She said “nobody has a corner on the good ideas. They actually come from many places and one should, especially if they want to be a leader, one should welcome those ideas.”
“And those ideas which are about in particular strengthening the middle class, securing our border, defending our freedoms, and maintaining our leadership in the world,” she said.
Harris, a lifelong Democrat, said her favorite committee while serving in the U.S. Senate was the Intelligence Committee and lauded the bipartisan work they accomplished.
“All of this is to also say that I believe for America to be the world’s strongest democracy, we must have a healthy two party system,” Harris said to applause. “Because it is when we have a healthy two-party system that leaders are then required to debate the merits of policy and to work, yes, across the aisle regularly and routinely to get things done.”
Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said on stage Wednesday that Harris shares his “allegiance to the rule of law, to the Constitution, and to democracy.”
“Whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison to those fundamental matters of principle, of decency, of fidelity to this nation,” Kinzinger said.
He added that because of those principles Harris was the “conservative choice” in the upcoming election.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley responded to Harris’ event by citing a Politico story published Wednesday that claimed some Pennsylvania Democrats are concerned about the campaign’s Philadelphia operations.
“Kamala Harris’ flailing campaign efforts in Pennsylvania paired with President Trump’s vision of Making America Strong, Safe, and Great Again is the reason he is winning in the Keystone State.,” Whatley said. “While Kamala and Democrats point fingers and play the blame game, for the first time in 30 years, more Americans identify as Republicans because they trust President Trump and Republicans down the ballot.”
Harris backers on GOP support
The campaign event on Wednesday was invite-only with a few hundred people in attendance.
Bob and Kristina Lange are family farmers in Malvern, lifelong Republicans, and former Trump voters. They opened for Harris on Wednesday and have been featured in multiple digital ads targeting rural voters in Pennsylvania.
“January 6th was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” Bob Lange said on stage.
The Langes told reporters that after speaking in support of Harris, some Republicans have criticized their decision and “divorced us from their friendship.”
“You know, it’s unfortunate,” Bob Lange told the Capital-Star. “But I’ve got to tell you, the support we’ve gotten from people coming to our farm market is overwhelming.”
They are optimistic about Harris’ chances in the upcoming election.
“I have a really good feeling, because I think normal Republicans, when they get in there, they just got to shake their head and say, ‘not this time,’” Bob Lange said.
Former Republican Congressman Jim Greenwood, who represented a Bucks County-based seat in the U.S. House from 1993 to 2005, is the co-chair of Pennsylvania Republicans for Harris and has been traveling around the state promoting the Harris campaign.
Although Democratic candidates for statewide office have performed well in recent elections in Bucks County, Republicans recently regained a voter registration advantage in Bucks County over Democrats for the first time since 2007.
“So registration is something, and it’s important, but what really is going to tell the tale is how many people go out and vote,” Greenwood told the Capital-Star. “And a lot of people, you know, they’ll be at the Grange Fair and they’ll register to vote. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to come out.”
For decades Bucks County has had a rich history of ticket splitting. Greenwood won his seat as a Republican and Bill Clinton won the district in the 1990s, and in 2020 Republican Brian Fitzpatrick won reelection for Congress while Democrat Joe Biden carried the county.
Biden defeated Trump in Bucks County by 4 points in 2020, although Hillary Clinton won the county by less than 1 point in the 2016 presidential election.
Greenwood told the Capital-Star to keep an eye on central Bucks County on Election night.
“You want to look at Doylestown borough and township, Solebury, Buckingham, Northampton,” he said, citing those areas being higher income neighborhoods with a high concentration of college graduates. “I think you’re going to see a lot of split tickets in Central Bucks County.”
According to the Harris campaign, it has 10 campaign offices in Philadelphia’s collar counties, including three located in Bucks County.
Andrew Macaulay, is a Democratic supervisor in Warrington, Bucks County, which he describes as a very “purple” area.
He supports the Harris campaign’s outreach to Republicans and thinks that there will be a lot of “not MAGA Republicans,” who will skip the presidential ticket, but then vote “fairly standard Republican” down the ballot.
“I think a lot of Republicans are still at core Republicans, they’re not this version of the Republican Party, and so I think we’ll get a pass in this election and next cycle the Democrats have to prove themselves again because they’re up against crazy pants,” he told the Capital-Star.
Zach Dowhower, a Philadelphia resident and lifelong Pennsylvanian, is also a Democrat who welcomes the Harris’ campaign’s push to win over Republicans. He told the Capital-Star he believes “getting those people motivated, I think, is how you bring a coalition like Pennsylvania together.”
Dowhower mentioned that his father is a lifelong Republican who has not supported Trump but said that this is the first time he thinks his father is “excited” to vote for a Democrat in Kamala Harris.
“I think that the rhetoric from the right is just kind of pushing him to a way that he doesn’t feel like that party he can align with,” Dowhower told the Capital-Star.
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Robert Schwartz, a senior advisor for Haley Voters for Harris, told the Capital-Star that recently launched a seven-figure ad campaign aimed at gaining support for Harris. The organization is focused on winning over voters who may have supported former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in the primary.
“Our message is very simple,” he said. “It’s actually that Kamala Harris is on issues like the economy or on the border, she is center-left, she’s not extreme left. She is somebody that the center-right can feel comfortable electing, whether that’s tax cuts or hiring border agents… things like that.”
“She’s not the extreme liberal that MAGA wants you to believe she is,” he said.
He cited a poll released on Oct. 9 by Democratic-leaning pollster Blueprint that showed 45% of Republican and independent Haley primary voters support Trump in the presidential election, while 36% are backing Harris. He said that’s proof that Haley voters can have an impact on the presidential election.
“What we’re trying to say is Donald Trump has never asked for your vote, he doesn’t want your vote,” Schwartz said. “Kamala Harris does and she’s offering a reasonable way forward.”
Haley is backing Trump’s candidacy and has sharply criticized the effort using her name to try to sway voters to support Harris.
Haley received 158,000 votes, 16%, in Pennsylvania’s primary, even though she ended her candidacy a month before.
Following her address, Harris participated in a taped interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier at Washington Crossing Historic Park.
With 20 days until the presidential election, Pennsylvania is expected to go down to the wire, with both campaigns going all-in to win the state’s 19 electoral votes. National ratings outlets describe the state as a “toss-up.”
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