Some of the top Democrats in Pennsylvania are reportedly unhappy with the way Vice President Kamala Harris has run her campaign in the biggest battleground state in the upcoming US presidential election.
Pennsylvania accounts for 19 Electoral College votes and Democrats are hoping their traditional strongholds of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will come through for Harris on November 5 against Republican Donald Trump. Both parties are on track to spend over $500 million in TV advertising there, more than in any other state.
“Democrats fret that any mistake here, big or small, could tip the election away from them,” Politico reported on Wednesday, citing insider sources.
“Pennsylvania is such a mess, and it’s incredibly frustrating,” said one elected Democrat, who asked to remain anonymous. “I feel like we’re going to win here, but we’re going to win it in spite of the Harris state campaign.”
Harris’ campaign manager for Pennsylvania, Nikki Lu, has drawn criticism from the Philadelphia set. One strategist claimed that she “empowers a culture” that has left local elected officials feeling “unengaged and disrespected.” Lu is from Pittsburgh, on the other side of the state.
Philadelphia City Councilmember Kendra Brooks told Politico that “there’s been a lot of struggles” within the campaign, due to “folks coming into Philadelphia that are making assumptions about what needs to happen in Philadelphia and not necessarily having the relationships to move Philadelphia politics.”
Lu has also been accused of not doing enough to attract black and Latino voters, seen as key Democrat voting blocs. While complaints about voter outreach are common among Pennsylvania Democrats, “this level of frustration and finger-pointing is not,” Politico noted.
The campaign’s initial Latino coalition manager, Mariel Joy Kornblith Martin, quit after just two weeks on the job and sent a memo to state party leaders in August complaining she was not given the data or the infrastructure she needed. A Harris campaign official said Martin’s claim was “untrue.”
According to former Philadelphia city council member Maria Quinones-Sanchez, the campaign has become “so scientific around door-knocking and connecting, that they forget that culturally, Latinos like just noise.”
“We need young African American men to come home. We need African American women... to come out in record numbers, and disaffected African Americans,” said Ryan Boyer, an important Philadelphia labor leader. He accused Lu of being “slow” to reach out to surrogates that could help with the black community, such as Mayor Cherelle Parker.
Lu herself did not comment to Politico. Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez sent a statement that the Democrats were “running the largest and most sophisticated operation in Pennsylvania history,” with 50 staff reaching out to black voters and another 30 to Latinos.
In recent weeks, however, the campaign brought in President Barack Obama’s former field director for Pennsylvania, Paulette Aniskoff, as well as several other operatives with ties to Philadelphia.