NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania — Vice President Kamala Harris‘s campaign is relying on second gentleman Doug Emhoff to help galvanize Pennsylvania voters in the final days before the presidential debate against former President Donald Trump in Philadelphia.
At an appearance with Harris campaign volunteers in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Emhoff excoriated Trump over his comments on Truth Social threatening to prosecute those who “cheated” during the 2020 election, including handing out “long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
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Emhoff slammed Trump’s comments as “unhinged” to the crowd of supporters on Sunday.
Trump is “literally still lying about the 2020 election, already complaining about the 2024 election, and literally threatening to jail anyone who stands in his way,” Emhoff said. “He just wrote that. That was just last night. It’s unhinged. It’s anti-American. And guess what? We are not afraid. We will not be intimidated.”
Emhoff also implored the crowd to register to vote before the Oct. 21 deadline and vote early beginning Sept. 16 in the battle over the Keystone State, the most important battleground state this election cycle. “How do we win this election?” Emhoff asked. “Vote!” the crowd responded.
“First of all, everyone’s got to get registered. I know this is common sense but we got a lot of new voters,” he continued. “We got a lot of folks out there, and so just make sure you know exactly what the rules are here.”
The campaign appearance from Emhoff saw him repeat familiar themes from the Harris campaign including attacking Trump over reproductive rights, linking him to Project 2025, and praising the vice president’s new proposals to help small-business owners.
He did not discuss his Jewish faith in the wake of Hamas murdering six American Jews who were taken hostage during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
As of 2021, the majority of Pennsylvania’s Jewish electorate, 67%, leans or is a Democrat. Yet, after the snubbing of Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), who is Jewish, as Harris’s running mate, some Democrats were unfazed and welcomed Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) joining the vice president’s campaign.
One day earlier, Emhoff appeared in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to raise morale and turnout among the Latino community, which has grown by 40% over the past 14 years.
Emhoff’s two events were part of nearly 500 events the Harris campaign held in Pennsylvania over the weekend targeting thousands of voters through canvassing, phone banks, and other get-out-the-vote initiatives with Democratic allies.
At the Norristown event, Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), and Ted Lieu (D-CA) were among the speakers who addressed the crowd before the second gentleman.
Winning the Keystone State and its 19 electoral votes in November would most likely deliver the White House to Harris, who has currently hunkered down in Pittsburgh to prepare for the onstage matchup against Trump on Tuesday.
Her supporters in Pennsylvania are confident she can win the state, even as polling shows the race will be close.
“If there’s anything that I’ve learned about the state of Pennsylvania with politics in recent elections is that it is truly a battleground state,” said Daniel Veres, a 31-year-old Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, resident. “So I believe that she can win the state of Pennsylvania because, at the end of the day, we have Pittsburgh workers who know what it’s like to work. We also have people in the City of Brotherly Love who are about change. So I just see this as a state that cannot steer away from what it’s historically known for.”
Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 by more than 44,000 votes, but four years later President Joe Biden flipped the state by more than 80,000 votes.
Harris is hoping she can continue the streak of Democratic dominance in the state by turning out voters who no longer want another four years of Trump.
“It is a total possibility that he could win again. And so it motivated me to get off my butt and do what I could to help the Harris-Walz campaign win,” said Kassel Coover, a 42-year-old Chester County resident and marketing professional who decided to canvass for Harris for the first time.
Coover’s husband is Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 but did not vote for Trump or Biden in 2020. “I think he might vote to spite me, to cancel out my vote,” Coover said of the 2024 cycle. “So I need to go out and make sure I get way more people to vote if he’s going to cancel out my vote.”
Being in a mixed political relationship has helped Coover be “more empathetic” when she’s canvassing in the state. “I understand because they’re looking for someone to help them. I’m looking for someone to help me, and I believe that someone is Kamala Harris,” she said.
Caroline Bradley, a 46-year-old marketing professional also from Chester County, began canvassing for Democrats in 2016 after being called a racial slur caused her to switch her lifelong Republican affiliation and back Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Now a seasoned campaign volunteer, Bradley is bringing along friends like Coover in hopes of increasing turnout among Democrats in Pennsylvania.
“I think that Chester County doesn’t just need to win the election. We need to win the election by plus 100,000 votes,” Bradley said. “Montgomery County needs to win by plus 100,000 votes. Every single collar county. If we can do that, we will cancel out the red in the middle.”
Bradley was referring to Philadelphia’s collar counties which include Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties. These collar counties’ tilt to the left in 2020 helped deliver the state to Biden while Trump has had more success in the northern and middle sections of the state known as the “T.”
The Harris campaign has repeatedly bragged about its ground game advantage over the Trump campaign. Just last week the campaign opened its 50th field office and has more than 350 staffers, while a Trump campaign official told the Washington Examiner one day before that they have more than two dozen offices in the Keystone State.
Of those 50 field offices, 16 are in rural counties that went for Trump by double digits in 2020. One of those offices is in Jefferson County, which Trump won by 79%, while another office was in Blair County, which Trump won by more than 71%.
The campaign has also targeted the more than 157,000 Republicans who voted for Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in the GOP primary earlier this year. Many of Haley’s highest-performing counties were in the collar counties, as well as in Lancaster County and the bellwether Erie County.
GOP officials, recognizing the importance of Pennsylvania to winning the White House, have deployed their own Trump Force 47 volunteers to canvass throughout the state and have reserved millions of dollars in future advertising in the state, though not as much as pro-Democratic groups.
Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have also made multiple stops in the Keystone State in hopes of thwarting Harris’s path to the White House.
But still, the Harris campaign stresses it is the “underdog” in the race in hopes of persuading voters not to assume Harris is automatically a shoo-in.
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“I think that Harris has more momentum, and it’s really growing and building. And I think when it comes down to it, Pennsylvanians will do the right thing,” said Emily Pugliese, a 43-year-old Philadelphia resident and policy expert at an environmental nonprofit organization.
“I’m very optimistic about it all. I’m very excited. But to me, it ain’t over till it’s over,” Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro said during a Zoom call to raise money for the Harris campaign. “So we can’t for one second think that we’re ahead of this thing. We just have to be on it all the time until the very end because, you know, they’re going to try everything.”
