JENKINS TWP. — Even though it was written right behind her on the side of a campaign bus, Senator Kamala Harris reiterated the message that her running mate, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, has said time and time again in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election.
“This election truly is all about a battle for the soul of our nation,” Harris said on Monday morning as a crowd of supporters gathered at the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1776 labor union office on Route 315.
Harris’s remarks were the kickoff to a county-wide canvass event, where most of Monday’s attendees went out to knock on doors and get on the phones in order to mobilize voters in Luzerne County before the polls open on Tuesday morning.
“She [Harris] is so inspiring,” said Chrisandra Tosh, of Lehman, who was in line after the event to get signed up for canvassing. “I’m here doing this for my kids, and for my family.”
Harris was making her first of many stops around eastern Pennsylvania, with scheduled trips to the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia still on the agenda. It’s all part of a barnstorming effort by the Biden/Harris campaign to mobilize voters in Pennsylvania, a state that’s promising to be crucial in this year’s election.
The Bidens, Joe and Jill, are out west with events in Beaver, Lawrence and Allegheny County, while Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff will be making multiple stops in the southeastern region of the state.
In Jenkins Township, masks were mandatory and an additional temperature check was required for anyone joining the canvassing effort after the event. The crowd was kept small and guests were permitted on an invitation-only basis.
The UFCW was a fitting backdrop for Monday’s event, with the topic of union workers, and working Americans in general, being a primary focus of the remarks made by both Harris and a list of guest speakers that included both local politicians and workers from the UFCW.
“Luzerne County was built by working men and women,” said Sen. Bob Casey. “They [the government] kicked our union workers right in the gut by taking away deductions for union dues.”
Casey and U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, who’s running a reelection campaign of his own against Republican challenger Jim Bognet, took the stage to stump for the Biden/Harris campaign, but also getting some time on the microphone were two UFCW members, including Local 1776 president Wendell Young.
“We were proud to endorse Joe Biden way back in July of 2019, before this pandemic even started,” Young said. “And we’re proud to have Senator Harris here today.”
“It’s good to be back in the house of labor,” Harris said with a smile to open her remarks.
The vice presidential candidate emphasized the importance of Pennsylvania to the election, and detailed all the ways that Biden would be an improvement on President Trump in handling the ongoing COVID pandemic, without even mentioning the president’s name.
“I don’t want to talk about that other guy, I’m going to talk about Joe,” Harris said. “Joe knew back in March what had to be done with the pandemic, and he wasn’t even an elected official.”
Harris acknowledged the horrors that Americans had to go through during this pandemic, especially those who lost a loved one and “couldn’t even be there with them to hold their hand.”
She also made it a point to remind everyone that, despite how they may have been feeling about the Trump presidency, better days are coming.
“This moment will pass … we are so much better than what we’ve had to endure these last four years,” Harris said. “Our democracy will always be as strong as our willingness to fight for it … some of the shingles may have fallen off, but this house is still standing.”
The crowd was kept small and guests were permitted on an invitation-only basis, but the enthusiasm and support was unmistakable as people cheered and clapped for Harris. Some people were local, some from neighboring Lackawanna County and some came from as far as New York.
“She’s so remarkable when she’s up on stage,” said Jeanne Boland of Scranton. “She had so many wonderful things to say.”
Among those in the crowd was state representative Mike Carroll, D-Avoca, who thought that the message Harris needed to convey was simple.
“She’s just got to get people out to vote,” Carroll said. “At this point, there’s not much else to be decided.”
Harris did play up the importance of voting, framing this election as a pivotal moment in American history.
“Our children and grandchildren will ask us someday, ‘Where were you at this moment?’” Harris said. “And we’ll be able to them not just about how we felt, but we’ll tell them about what we did.
“We got on the phone, we knocked on doors even when people got sick of us, we got out and voted and we elected Joe Biden as our next president.”