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Rep. Summer Lee And Residents Rail Against Trump And Musk At Packed Pittsburgh Town Hall

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Town halls have become potent political theater early in Donald Trump’s second term, and Lee told a friendly crowd that Democrats must try different tactics in a “failing democracy.”

By Charlie Wolfson

Public Source

March 20, 2025

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025, in a town hall meeting. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee made a case for bolder action from elected Democrats at a town hall event Thursday evening, speaking to hundreds of constituents as her party tries to find its footing during the chaotic first months of Donald Trump’s second term as president.

Lee, a second-term Democrat from Swissvale, took questions at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Constituents asked questions about Trump’s moves to drastically change federal policy on education and housing, potential cuts to Medicaid and Social Security and environmental issues.

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh on March 20, in a town hall event to solicit input and answer questions about the federal government two months into the second administration of President Donald Trump. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

It was a friendly crowd for Lee in the historical heart of Black Pittsburgh, a neighborhood and city that reliably vote overwhelmingly Democratic. The crowd applauded and shouted in agreement at many points throughout Lee’s remarks.

Lee argued that Democrats in Congress largely aren’t doing enough to push back on Trump’s agenda so far, echoing widespread criticism from the party’s rank and file that intensified after Senate Democrats provided votes to pass Trump’s budget measure last week.

Her comments were in response to a question from audience member Veronica Pratt, who said that most elected Democrats “are not meeting the moment.”

“There are a lot of people in Congress,” Lee said, “… who have been there for a very long time. Institutional knowledge is typically very important. But the things that worked for us even two years ago cannot work in a failing democracy. And we are in a failing democracy right now.”

  • U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks to town hall meeting attendees at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
  • An attendee at a town hall meeting holds a sign while waiting in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, held the meeting to hear concerns about changes in the federal government since President Donald Trump’s inauguration two months prior. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
  • Attendees hold up signs in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District while waiting in line for a town hall meeting with U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, on March 20. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
  • U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks to town hall meeting attendees at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
  • An attendee at a town hall meeting holds a sign while waiting in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, held the meeting to hear concerns about changes in the federal government since President Donald Trump’s inauguration two months prior. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

In what may have been a veiled reference to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, Lee said “there’s no shame” in elder leaders stepping aside.

“If you’ve served for 40 years, if you’ve served your time and this isn’t the moment you’re willing to fight back … then maybe it’s OK to step aside,” she said.

The gathering was the latest representation of local opposition to the White House, where President Donald Trump has used his first two months back in power to begin a sweeping remaking of the federal government, shut down refugee resettlement and launch a large-scale deportation campaign. 

Activist-led protests have occurred on city streets at times since the Jan.

House lawmakers reintroduce bill to close Pennsylvania’s gender earnings gap

“We’re going to see actions and they’re going to escalate across the country,” Lee said.

Long an unassuming part of American democracy, town hall meetings have gained added significance this year. Republican congressional leadership observed a surge in protests at town halls held by GOP lawmakers, and urged them to stop holding the meetings. Democrats, meanwhile, have seen the open gatherings as opportunities to galvanize opposition to Trump.

Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks at a town hall meeting at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

In sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s focus on removing any references to diversity and multiculturalism from government spaces, Thursday’s town hall began with a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” commonly referred to as the Black national anthem.

The first question from the audience concerned Trump’s move just hours earlier to attempt to begin shutting down the federal Department of Education via executive order. 

Lee predicted dire implications for residents, noting that the federal government provides thousands of dollars per student for Pittsburgh schools and predicting that if that money stops, schools will falter or the cost will be passed onto local property taxpayers.

“If you cut and you gut public education, any child can be left behind,” Lee said. “… What does that mean for the future of America?”

Another audience member asked about the influence of billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the government. Musk was Trump’s biggest campaign backer last year, spending a quarter billion dollars to boost his candidacy and those of other Republicans, and now has a wide-ranging role in shaping White House policy. Musk and the Musk-inspired Department of Government Efficiency have focused on making significant cuts to the federal workforce, sometimes going further than federal judges will allow and leading to lapses in federal services.

Lee railed against the “idiocracy of Elon Musk and those babies he has working for him” and said she would use her seat on the House Oversight Committee to probe his business conflicts of interest. 

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

Civil Liberties, Democrats, Fascism, GOP, Harrisburg, Organizing, Philadelpia, Pittsburgh, Right Wing, Solidarity, trump

‘We Are Going To Save Ourselves’: Anti-Trump Crowd Gathers At PA Capitol In 50501 Rally

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Photo; PA Rep Malcolm Kenyatta speaking to protestors in Harrisburg. By Bethany Rodgers

  • Protests against President Trump and his agenda, including the involvement of Elon Musk, took place nationwide.
  • Many protestors believe there is a renewed sense of urgency to oppose Trump’s policies in his second term.

By Bethany Rodgers
USA TODAY NETWORK

Feb. 5, 2025 – HARRISBURG — Scores of protestors gathered outside the Pennsylvania state capitol Wednesday as part of nationwide demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s administration and the Project 2025 agenda.

The gathering was part of a nationwide wave of protests coordinated by the 50501 movement, short for “50 Protests, 50 States, One Day.” In Pennsylvania, demonstrations were also planned for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Attendees waved signs calling for Trump’s impeachment, rainbow banners and American flags. A number of them also aimed their ire at Elon Musk, the billionaire who has assailed federal government agencies in recent days with the immense powers Trump has granted him.

Mari-Beth DeLucia, of Harrisburg, said she knows someone who works for the U.S. Agency for International Development, a government humanitarian arm that Musk has called a “criminal” organization and sought to dismantle. Employees at the agency are being placed on administrative leave, and Trump’s team has frozen foreign aid distributed by the office.

The damage Trump and Musk are doing will reverberate through charities, businesses and communities across the U.S., DeLucia predicts. But up to this point, she thinks people have been too stunned to mount the type of protests that spilled into the street when Trump was elected for his first term in 2016.

“Why aren’t we marching? Where is everybody?” DeLucia said she’s wondered lately. “I think it was kind of shell shock.”

More:’Don’t let democracy die’: Anti-Trump protesters rally in cities across US

She’s hopeful that Wednesday’s gathering is a sign that people are again raising their voices.

Savannah Bellem, a volunteer who brought snacks and drinks to the Harrisburg demonstration, said it was her first time participating in a protest. Back in 2016, she thought the answer was to wait out Trump’s term.

Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, speaks to a group of protestors in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 5, 2025. The demonstration against President Donald Trump’s administration was part of nationwide rallies coordinated by the 50501 movement.
“It’s four years — what can happen?” the New Cumberland resident remembers telling her husband.

She now sees that attitude as naive, and this time around she feels a heightened sense of urgency. A gay couple in her family are frightened they could lose their child. She said she is angry that her young daughter now has fewer rights than she did at the same age.

“We’re not going to stand for it,” she said. “We need to get back more into taking care of our community and each other.”

State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta also emphasized the importance of local action in a speech to the crowd, urging them to focus on city councils and school boards in addition to politicians in Washington, D.C.

“There is no one, and I mean it, no one, coming to save us,” the Philadelphia Democrat said. “But here is the good news, my friends: We are going to save ourselves.”

Bethany Rodgers is a USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania capital bureau investigative journalist.

Civil Liberties, Immigrant Rights, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey: ‘My Administration Will Not Work With ICE’

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WTAE

Jan 28, 2025

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said during an event in Harrisburg Monday that his administration will not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Our news partners at the Trib said Gainey’s comments come amid heightened concerns from local immigrant communities about ICE raids.

“My administration will not work with ICE,” Gainey said during a Pennsylvania Press Club event Monday. “We will do whatever’s necessary to make our city more welcoming. That’s what we’re built on.”

President Donald Trump has issued “quotas for the immigration enforcement agency to ramp up arrests,” the Trib said, attributing the Washington Post. Trump’s remarks include enforcement at schools and other “sensitive sites.”

“ICE is not going to end the situation of a failed immigration policy — it’s not going to do it,” Gainey said. “What it’s going to do is create more situations where people feel scared, where people don’t feel safe, where people will do things that they normally wouldn’t do.

“If the federal government wants to be serious about what they want to do to reform the immigration law, then they need to create a pathway to citizenship.”

Vanessa Caruso, a Pittsburgh-based immigration attorney, told the Trib that she has been taking calls “all day, every day” from people who are worried about ICE actions.

“The concern is real,” she said to the Trib, and it’s growing as the Trump administration looks to crack down on immigration.

Gainey’s press secretary, Olga George, said in a statement to Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 on Monday evening that the city was unaware of any ICE raids.

“Currently, the city of Pittsburgh has no evidence of ICE activity occurring within city limits and has not been asked to assist the agency in any way,” the statement said. “ICE is a federal law enforcement agency that works outside of city control. Public Safety and the Bureau of Police will adhere to bureau policies.”

According to the Trib, the policy says city police are unable to arrest someone just to investigate their immigration status.

In a statement posted to the @PGHController X account on Tuesday, City Controller Rachael Heisler said, in part, “The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has long upheld a policy of not arresting or detaining people solely to investigate immigration status. PBP officers are not immigration agents, and enforcing federal civil immigration warrants is not the job they’re trained to do.

“Pittsburgh police will follow procedure for criminal warrants regardless of immigration status. But under current PBP policy, police do not arrest or detain people based on civil immigration or administrative warrants in NCIC.”

Immigrant Rights, Right Wing, safety net, Solidarity

Trump Administration’S Mass Deportation Plan Would Hurt Pennsylvania, Immigrant Advocates Warn

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They urged Democratic lawmakers to pass legislation to make the commonwealth more welcoming

By: Peter Hall

Penncapitol-Star

Nov 14, 2024 – President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants would lead to population loss, exacerbate workforce shortages and increase tax burdens for Pennsylvania residents and businesses, the Democratic state lawmakers heard Wednesday.

Advocates for the immigrant community testified before the state House Democratic Policy Committee that although the federal government maintains exclusive authority over immigration policy, which is expected to take a draconian shift under a second Trump administration, state lawmakers can make Pennsylvania a more welcoming place.

“It’s been laid out very clearly. Unfortunately, it’s going to be immigrant detention and deportations on the horizon,” Julio Rodriguez, political director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, said. “So now it’s crucial that this legislature not only has welcoming policies to support immigrants, but to fight back against these proposals.”

The hearing on the last day of the 2023-2024 legislative session was convened by state Rep. Danilo Burgos (D-Philadelphia), who serves as chairperson of the Pennsylvania Legislative Latino Caucus.

Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the nation in population loss, Rodriguez said. In 2021, the net decrease in population between births and deaths was more than 23,000.

“We didn’t see that impact, because net international migration, also known as immigrants moving here, was 25,721,” Rodriguez said “Had it not been for immigrants, we would have seen a drastic population decline.”

A state’s population determines its number of representatives in Congress. Rodriguez noted that Pennsylvania lost one congressional seat after the 2020 census and could lose another in 2030. It would also result in Pennsylvania receiving less federal funding.

But more immediately, the loss of a portion of the commonwealth’s 978,000 immigrant residents would worsen the labor shortage in the agricultural sector, driving up grocery store prices. Undocumented workers also contribute billions in taxes and in the state’s gross domestic product, Rodriguez said.

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2024 Election, Aliquippa, Beaver Falls, Democrats, Manufacturing, Pittsburgh, Summer Lee

Deluzio Win In Western Pennsylvania Keeps Swing District In Democratic Control

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Photo: U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (PA-17) speaks to reporters at an event highlighting the Biden Administration’s investment in infrastructure at the Kingsley Center Pittsburgh’s Larimer neighborhood on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Union Progress)

By Kim Lyons

Pennsylvania Capitol-Star

November 12, 2024 – We’re analyzing the results of the 2024 election by taking a closer look at some of the pivotal or unexpected outcomes. First up is an interview with U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-17th District) who held off a GOP challenger in a key swing district.

Pennsylvania’s U.S. House delegation lost two Democrats in last Tuesday’s election, and promising Democratic challengers in two hard-fought House districts in the central and eastern part of the state failed to unseat longtime Republican incumbents.

But in western Pennsylvania, Democrats in the House fared better. Incumbent Reps. Summer Lee (12th District) and Chris Deluzio (17th District) both won reelection. After Lee won a contentious primary against challenger Bhavini Patel in April, she was widely expected to win the general election, which she did, beating GOP challenger James Hayes 56.1% to 43.9%, according to unofficial results.

But Deluzio’s reelection to a second term representing the district that includes parts of blue Allegheny and red Beaver counties was much more uncertain. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) put the race on its list of seats to flip in 2024.

His opponent, state Rep. Rob Mercuri (R-Allegheny) received a key endorsement from the conservative Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Action super PAC. Even his own party considered it to be a swing district; the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) named Deluzio as one of the “vulnerable” incumbents it sought to protect this cycle, adding him to its Frontline list of candidates.

He’s the only one of the three U.S. House candidates from Pennsylvania on the Frontline list who won reelection.

“I’m very proud of the win,” Deluzio told the Capital-Star. “I’m really proud we increased the margin, and especially in Beaver County, which moved to the right at the top of the ticket, but we moved it towards me.”

Deluzio also increased the margins from his first election in 2022, when he won by 6.8% over challenger Jeremy Shaffer. This election, he won by 7.3% over Mercuri.

Deluzio refrained from the blame game going on within some parts of the Democratic Party reeling from Harris’ loss to Trump, but said as a representative of a Rust Belt district, he understands the frustration that many voters have with those in power.

“Whether it’s powerful folks or forces or companies who hurt people or who are making life worse, I think there’s a tendency among some in my party to always look for win-win framing,” he said. “And you know what? Sometimes there’s a bad guy and you’ve got to kick his ass.”

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2024 Election, Democrats, elections, Organizing, Pittsburgh, Youth and students

College Dems Energized, Republicans Seek ‘Safe Spaces’ Amid Consequential Election Season

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Photo: Thomas Ross (left) and Austin Wise give a tutorial to students who have never canvassed before on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, at Schenley Plaza in Oakland. (Photo by Anastasia Busby/PublicSource)

Democratic organizers say student political engagement has soared since Kamala Harris took over their party’s presidential ticket. Their Republican counterparts report backlash for supporting candidates and views they say are controversial on campuses.


By Spencer Levering

Public Source

October 3, 2024 – Thomas Ross didn’t realize that the political interest on Pitt’s campus was “electric,” as he characterized it, until the semester’s first door-knocking event for Pitt Students for Harris brought 34 volunteers — more than double the number he expected.

“Having 34 volunteers on our first canvass literally blew my mind,” said Ross, a University of Pittsburgh junior studying history and political science. “Everyone that I’ve spoken with has been very excited about the election.” Other Democratic students echoed this, saying they’re seeing new levels of excitement from their peers.

Just up Forbes Avenue, Anthony Cacciato is aiming to make the Carnegie Mellon University College Republicans a space where students can speak freely about their conservative values. Cacciato, president of the chapter, said with election season sparking student’s political intrigue, he’s preparing for a “barrage of negative backlash.”

At colleges around Pittsburgh, political clubs are organizing students to gear up for the upcoming November elections. Club leaders cited Pennsylvania’s influence on national politics as a key reason why they’re trying to mobilize the youth vote as Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris vie for Electoral College votes.

Organizing through socializing

As on-campus political groups look to activate students this fall, many said they are trying to mix political outreach efforts with social events to appeal to young voters.

Cacciato said group outings, such as seeing the new movie “Reagan,” help prevent students from burning out over organizing.

“We’re a space where you can feel comfortable with talking about who you are, but also feel comfortable in knowing that you’re surrounded by friends,” Cacciato said.

The club’s membership increased by 20% this semester, according to Cacciato, because of Pennsylvania’s outsize impact on national politics.

“When you have that knives-edge margin, any little bit of outreach can mean the difference between 10,000 people staying home and not voting and them going out and voting and flipping a precinct, flipping a state House seat, flipping the state, and flipping the country,” Cacciato said.

At Pitt, Sam Podnar, co-president of the Pitt College Democrats, said she creates an environment in which students can meet new people and break out of political apathy.

“We want to let people know that getting involved doesn’t have to be hard, it doesn’t have to be stressful. We just want them to keep showing up,” Podnar said.

She said President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse Vice President Harris has energized students to get involved in Democratic organizing. General body meetings, weekend canvasses and the club’s presidential debate watch party have all drawn new participants.

“We’ve seen a really, really big surge in membership that just has honestly blown everyone away,” Podnar said.

Avalon Sueiro, president of the CMU College Democrats, said finding a balance between doing work and building a community helps draw students to attend the club’s events. When election day gets nearer, she plans on bringing therapy dogs to campus to calm students’ nerves.

Making it pop

Among Democratic student organizers, leaders are leaning into memes and pop culture as they try to energize college voters. When the semester began, the Instagram pages for Pitt Students for Harris and Pitt College Democrats both had profile photos referencing Charli XCX’s “brat” album. The pop star’s viral summer tweet calling the vice president “brat” spawned a flurry of online memes, which the Harris campaign embraced as an early branding strategy.

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2024 Election, African-Americans, Democrats, elections, Fascism, Pittsburgh, Voting Rights, Women, Youth and students

Summer Lee and AOC Rally Pittsburgh College Students To Get Involved In 2024 Election

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By Abigail Hakas

Pennsylvania Capitol-Star

September 22, 2024 – PITTSBURGH — With just 44 days until the 2024 election, U.S. Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) rallied young voters for the Harris-Walz ticket at Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday.

Young people, Lee told the audience “are not the voices of the future,” but rather “the voices of right now.”

“We are all in the most powerful room in the country,” she said. “This is the most powerful room because we are in Western Pennsylvania, we’re in Western Pennsylvania, and the road to the White House, the road to the Senate and the road to the House all leads right here through y’all’s campuses.”

Pennsylvania is key for both Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee. With its 19 electoral votes, the Keystone State is the biggest prize of the “blue wall” battleground states for either candidate.

According to the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of registered voters ages 18 to 24 align with Democrats. In 2023, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement estimated around 41 million members of Gen Z would be eligible to vote in the 2024 election.

Sunday’s event was co-hosted by College Democrats at Pitt, the CMU College Democrats and the Young Democrats of Allegheny County.

“When I talk about what our job is in the next 40-something days, your job is to take care of each other because that’s who I’m voting for,” Lee said. “I’m going to go and vote for the most marginalized person in my life. Because it’s my job, it’s my responsibility, to make sure that I’m creating the conditions that we all can survive in, not just survive, that we can all thrive in.”

Ocasio-Cortez followed Lee with a list of the issues that young voters might be most concerned with: climate change, school shootings and the cost of rent and healthcare.

“We have been aging and growing in a world that our predecessors have left to us,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Respectfully, a lot of what has been left to us is messed up, is really messed up, and it’s messed up not even on a partisan basis, it’s messed up generationally.”

Ocasio-Cortez told a story of her time at Boston University when Barack Obama began his candidacy, and her absentee ballot did not arrive in time. She said she took a bus back home to New York City to cast her vote for the future president.

She not only encouraged students to register to vote in Pennsylvania with their on-campus address, but also to sign up for a shift with the Harris-Walz campaign, go door-to-door and ensure a Democratic victory at every level in the election.

Those calls-to-action were the theme of the speakers at Sunday’s event, with Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, CMU College Democrats President Avalon Sueiro and Harris-Walz campus organizer Agatha Prairie all taking the stage.

Prairie encouraged attendees to convince five friends to vote and Sueiro said to knock on classmates’ doors and “have those tough conversations” about the stakes of the election.

Gainey took a more somber approach.

“We should all be tired. I’m tired of someone that can stand on the stage in a debate and say to the American people and the world that immigrants that are here in our country eat dogs and cats,” he said in reference to former President Donald Trump’s false claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. “I’m tired of that level of hate.”

Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) campaigned in Berks County on Saturday, and mentioned Springfield in his remarks. His job “as the United States Senator representing the people of Ohio is to listen to American citizens and fight for them,” Vance said.

“So our message to Kamala Harris and Democrats is we’re going to keep on complaining about their politics because this is America and we have the right to speak our minds,” he added.

Innamorato pointed out that a satellite voting location at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Oct. 15-17. Satellite locations offer residents the ability to register to vote, request a mail-in ballot, complete and return it in one place.

“A Pennsylvania victory runs through Allegheny County, and it runs through young people,” Innamorato said. “I’m asking for all of you to do what you can, to knock doors, to volunteer, to make phone calls, to talk to your weird cousin, to get your classmates on board, because we got a lot of work to do over the next 44 days.”

2024 Election, Democrats, elections, Organizing, Voting Rights, Women

Harris Campaigns In Johnstown And Wilkes-Barre: ‘Listening As Much As We Are Talking’

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 Photo: 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. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)    

By: Patrick Abdalla and Kim Lyons

Penn-Capital Star

September 13, 2024 – 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.”

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