Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have problems in Pennsylvania.
Harris, her team, and Democrats across the country have finally realized that. But is their knowledge coming too late? And can they fix it?
With his dismal performance in June's debate, President Biden showed the nation that he is old, struggling, and unfit for office. Opinion polls also confirmed this. National Democrats and Team Harris, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, took action.
Something had to be done. The Democratic Party Politburo, representing 75 million Democratic voters, decided what the best option was for the party. “Uncle Joe” is here, and the new and improved product is Kamala Harris.
What Harris and national Democrats didn't realize was that this might have been necessary. Nationwide strategy was terrible pennsylvania strategy. If you want to win the presidency in 2024, you need Pennsylvania, especially if you're a Democrat.
The first big mistake for Harris and her team was taking the Keystone State for granted. “Uncle Joe” is from Scranton and loves to tell stories about his family's days in Scranton. This helped secure thousands of blue Democratic votes in northeastern Pennsylvania, which is increasingly red. If she takes away Biden, Harris in San Francisco has little chance of retaining those voters.
Add to that the fact that for three decades, voters in Philadelphia and its suburbs viewed Biden as the “third senator.” He showed up at the Navy Yard, ball games, ribbon cuttings, everything. In 2020, Republicans told voters that Biden was in thrall to the “far left,” but that was not the case in southeastern Pennsylvania. It will be much easier in 2024 with Harris at the top.
Then, after weeks of courting Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, Ms. Harris rejected him as a candidate for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Minnesota is a state that has Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura and Governor Al “Saturday Night Live” Franken as senators. .
It was another misstep for Harris. Although Mr. Shapiro is not Mr. Biden, he is well known in metropolitan Philadelphia and seems comfortable campaigning in Scranton and similar towns across the state.
Is Harris rejecting Shapiro because Shapiro is Jewish and supports Israel's right to self-defense, or is Harris rejecting Shapiro because he is a tireless campaigner and has a good reputation on the stump? It is not yet clear whether this is because it may be possible. Did she reject Shapiro because choosing him would have angered her congressional team and jeopardized the electoral votes of Michigan, a state with a large Muslim population? Or did she refuse to run for Pennsylvania governor because she didn't want her supporters to tweet that she should have run? he“?
Ms. Harris compounded her mistake by nominating Ms. Walz, who represents the modern left of the Democratic Party. Walz won't help Harris win votes in Pennsylvania. In fact, he makes it difficult. She chose characters she couldn't relate to anywhere, from her Philadelphia neighborhood to small-town and rural Pennsylvania. And he is simply “weird.”
The situation gets even worse. Her message, agenda, and policies do not resonate here.
She sought to emphasize that the economy was actually doing well, insisting that “Bidenomics is working.” They tried charts, graphs, and “experts.” No one is buying Philadelphia's neighborhoods, especially black and Hispanic residents crushed by inflation and violent crime.
So Harris pivoted to a new message of “fixing” the economy and “fighting” inflation. Her comical line, “I grew up in a middle-class family,” has elicited blank stares, laughter, or anger even among some of her usual supporters.
The situation is even worse in rural Pennsylvania, where Waltz and “Second Gentleman” Doug Emhoff attempt a “Real Men Tour for Kamala,” which includes a tour of why men should support her. It included an ad and a Zoom call about what's going on.
Then they sent Elmer Fudd, aka Waltz, out on a hunt. Wearing newly purchased hunting clothes and using the wrong rifle (further showing he didn't know how to load a gun), Waltz resembled something like King Charles attending the Indianapolis 500. Ta.
Harris was against hydraulic fracturing — which means, as she now claims, she used to be for it. Nobody buys that in rural Pennsylvania. She herself says, “My values haven't changed.'' Residents of rural Pennsylvania know that the policies she favors will harm the economy of northern, central and western Pennsylvania, not to mention the national economy and national security.
Of course, Democrats want to win Pennsylvania, but they chose the wrong candidate in the wrong way. Harris then dug himself an even deeper hole by picking the wrong running mate. What's more, they operate on a platform that is misguided, if not delusional.
In an effort to save the race, they sent billionaire Obama on a private jet to lecture working-class black male voters in Pittsburgh. The former president chided them about their supposed obligation to support black candidates and how they must overcome their aversion to women being in charge. Perhaps he could not convince many of them.
The margin of victory could be considered narrow in a state that Trump led by 0.7 percentage points in 2016 and lost by 1.4 percentage points in 2020. There is no room for unforced errors.
Either Ms. Harris and the national Democratic Party have made a grave miscalculation, or they believe that a candidate's track record or platform does not matter.
Are you ignorant or arrogant? Or is the Democratic Party's current strategy simply to garner votes for its “brand”? The results will tell us a lot about not only the winner of the 2024 presidential election, but also the battle for Pennsylvania in the coming years.
Guy Ciarrocchi writes for RealClearPennsylvania and Broad+Liberty. He is a former Republican Congressional candidate and strategist.
Twitter: @PaSuburbsGuy
Republished with permission from RealClearPennsylvania.
