Vice President Kamala Harris spent Oct. 27 in Philadelphia, talking with Black and brown voters, unveiling pivotal policy initiatives for her administration and giving an SRO rally at the Kroc Center in Philadelphia’s predominantly Black Nicetown neighborhood.
Harris began her blitz of the city at a Black church in West Philadelphia, The Church of Christian Compassion. Harris spoke about her experiences growing up in a church and being in the church choir. Then she spoke about reaching those who feel disenfranchised. “There are so many, for a variety of reasons, that carry a heavy heart and that want and must be heard. We carry real burdens. People feel real pain. But like Paul, we must remember that divine power works through our actions. And we have the power to move past division, fear and chaos.”
She closed with an uplifting message about her experiences campaigning, saying, “I see faith in action all over, everywhere I go. I see remarkable acts. I see a nation determined to turn the page on hatred and division to chart a new way forward. I see Americans from so-called red states and blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice.”
Harris said, “I see young people organized for change. I see neighbors helping neighbors recover and rebuild from disasters. I see voters standing together in the fight to defend freedom, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us.”
Focus on Trump, not Harris
There was little news coverage of this pivotal tour by Harris through the linchpin city for votes in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has the most Electoral College votes of any swing state.
Media attention was and has been since focused on Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden. While Harris was laying out various plans in stops at Black and brown small businesses, Trump’s hand-picked surrogates were calling Puerto Rico a floating garbage dump, Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a b*tch,” that “America should be for Americans only,” and Harris herself a “Samoan Malaysian low IQ wannabe president” — with that last statement by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Harris refutes the racist narratives
The attacks by Trump and his cohort received backlash, including among Philadelphia’s large Puerto Rican community, that Harris’s wonky jam-packed multi-outreach visit flew under the radar with many voters remaining in the dark over her latest outreach.
Harris had previously cut a video attacking Trump for withholding hurricane relief to Puerto Rico. That video also includes Harris’s proposals to boost economic opportunities for Puerto Rico. After the comments by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at the Madison Square Garden event, Puerto Rican music superstars Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin reposted the video on Instagram to their millions of followers.
Harris talks Puerto Rican outreach in Philly
A foundational point of Harris’s argument to the Puerto Rican community in Philadelphia and beyond is Trump’s treatment of Puerto Rico during his administration. Her outreach was happening parallel to the Madison Square Garden event.
During Trump’s presidency, the administration impeded a federal probe examining the delayed release of $20 billion in Hurricane Maria aid to Puerto Rico, according to an April 2021 oversight report.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Inspector General found that Trump officials created unusual bureaucratic obstacles between HUD and the Office of Management and Budget, significantly slowing the distribution of Congress-approved disaster relief. The funds were supposed to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017. Hurricane Maria was one of America’s deadliest natural disasters in a century.
At a Puerto Rican restaurant in North Philadelphia, Mayor Cherelle Parker introduced Harris as the “47th president of the United States” and Harris kissed babies and spoke to the crowd about her plans.
Harris said, “Obviously, the goal is to win, but the goal also for me and I know for all of us, is in this process to build community, to build coalitions to remind people that we’re all in this together. I think there’s been so much about these last many years and the so-called Trump era. It’s been about trying to have people point their fingers at each other and divide people and make people feel small.”
Harris said, “And what I know about the leaders who are here — we know the real measure of the strength of the leaders based on who you lift up. Not who you beat down. We’re going to continue to work on that.”
Harris told the group, “But you all have been doing such extraordinary work and truly the path to victory runs through Philly and it runs through Pennsylvania. I so strongly believe that our campaign in this fight really is not against anything, it’s for something.”
Harris said she had visited Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria as a senator. She said, “This is not a new area of focus for me. In fact, my team will tell you that even when I was in the Senate, knowing Puerto Rico doesn’t have a senator. I always felt a need and an obligation to do what I could as a senator to make sure that Puerto Rico’s needs were met. And I have some work that I did during the Senate years that is in furtherance of that.”
Harris speaks at Kroc Center in Nicetown
Harris’s Oct. 27 rally at the Kroc Center in Philadelphia’s predominantly Black and low-income Nicetown neighborhood was attended by a very diverse standing-room-only crowd. At the event, Harris was succinct about her mission and her opponent, saying, “We are focused on the future and we are focused on the needs of the American people, as opposed to Donald Trump, who spends full time looking in the mirror focused on himself.”
Harris praised young voters for being “rightly impatient for change,” and said “there is too much at stake” in the election.
On Oct. 26, a group of A-list actors, including Robert DeNiro, Kerry Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio joined Mayor Parker for a rally outside City Hall. At the Kroc rally, actors Don Cheadle and Mark Ruffalo spoke about Harris and the importance of her candidacy.
Randyll Butler, a youth basketball coach who introduced Harris, said the election was in the “fourth quarter. We cannot get tired. We cannot get complacent.”
Speaking to reporters, Harris said, “Philadelphia is a very important part of our path to victory. It’s the reason I have been spending time here. But I’m feeling very optimistic about the enthusiasm.”
LGBTQ+ voters could make the difference in PA vote
According to GLAAD, a recent analysis shows LGBTQ+ voters could again provide the decisive vote for pro-equality candidates, particularly in four battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — all of which have populations of LGBTQ+ adults significantly larger than the margin of victory for the 2020 winning presidential candidate.
GLAAD notes that Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by a mere 80,555 votes in 2020, but states that there are over 586,500 LGBTQ+ adults in Pennsylvania, making queer and trans voters a key demographic for that margin of victory.Philadelphia has more LGBTQ+ people than any other city in Pennsylvania, making voter turnout in the community critical. City Councilmember Rue Landau has pushed to register more LGBTQ+ voters, saying the city’s LGBTQ+ community is growing rapidly.
