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Kamala Harris fires up Harrisburg PA crowd at rally

Sakege October 31, 2024

Greeted by a packed house Wednesday at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex, Vice President Kamala Harris continued to make her final arguments to voters for a possible return to the White House after Nov. 5.

Following her speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, the Democratic candidate used her first visit to the Harrisburg area to encourage voters to “turn the page” on the division that a former Donald Trump presidency could bring. The Ellipse is the same place where Trump four years ago gave a speech to his supporters before a group of them stormed the US capital on January 6, 2021.

Harris said it’s time for a “new generation of leadership in America.”

“We know that in this election we have the opportunity to turn the page on a decade in which Donald Trump tried to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” he said. “Pennsylvania, that’s not who we are.”

Harris said Trump wasn’t thinking about how to improve the lives of Pennsylvanians.

“This is someone unstable, obsessed with revenge, full of grievances and greedy for uncontrolled power,” he said.

Pennsylvania is one of seven swing states essential for either candidate to secure an Electoral College victory. President Joe Biden won the Commonwealth by 88,114 votes. In 2016, Trump won the state by 44,292 votes.

On Monday, Trump made claims both at campaign events and on social media alleging that York and Lancaster County Election Offices Received “thousands of “potentially fraudulent” voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications.

York County Presiding Commissioner Julie Wheeler issued a statement announcing Election office officials have received a large amount of election-related materials and are processing them carefully. In a press release On Wednesday afternoon, the Lancaster County Prosecutor’s Office said a review uncovered hundreds of fraudulent voter applications related to large-scale canvassing operations. “Detectives were unable to verify hundreds more, meaning that no identifying information provided on the application could be located (in any police or public source database) and therefore could not be verified,” it reads. in the statement.

“We are fighting for our democracy,” Harris said Wednesday in Harrisburg. “We love our democracy. It may be complicated at times, but it is the best system in the world.”

On a few occasions, the vice president was interrupted by protesters chanting “Free Palestine” and waving Palestinian flags. But they were overshadowed by supporters shouting the vice president’s name and “We’re not coming back.”

“Everyone has the right to be heard, but right now I’m speaking out,” Harris told protesters.

Harris told supporters she was committed to finding common ground and common-sense solutions to the challenges Americans face. Harris said she will be a president for all Americans, putting country before party and self.

“At this particular moment it needs to be emphasized that, unlike Donald Trump, I do not believe that people who disagree with me are the ‘enemy within,'” he said. “He wants to put them in jail, I want to give them a seat at the table.”

Policy issues

Addressing voters’ concerns about inflation, Harris said she will implement tax cuts for the middle class. The vice president told the crowd she would enact the first federal ban on food price gouging, cap the price of insulin and limit out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Americans.

Noting the need to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, Harris said she would continue the Biden-Harris Administration’s successes in reducing the cost of life-saving prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries by extending the $35 limit on insulin and the $2,000 limit on out-of-pocket expenses for seniors to all Americans. On Tuesday he announced plans to expand Medicare to cover the cost of home care.

Harris continued to push her support for IVF treatments and abortion rights, claiming that one in three women in the United States lives in a state with “a Trump abortion ban.” Harris added that Donald Trump would ban abortion nationwide and restrict access to birth control and monitor women’s pregnancies if he were re-elected.

“I promise you that when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law,” he said.

What those attending the rally said

Cherry Graziosi. from Frederick, Maryland, was first in line for the Harrisburg rally and second in line for the closing arguments rally in Washington, DC the night before. Wednesday was Harris’ third rally this year.

“We cannot, as she says, go back to what it was before Biden, when this country was so divided,” he said. “We need to move forward, we need to unite. We need to move away from the anger. We need to understand that the middle class needs help and there has to be a middle class.”

In 2016, Graziosi attended a Trump rally as a joke in Hershey. He said he went up to the VIP table claiming he donated a lot of money to the campaign, even though he donated a lot to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The Trump campaign gave her a VIP sticker and she sat behind Trump during the rally.

“It’s a big difference,” Graziosi said of the rebound. “With Donald Trump you have angry men. I mean really young, angry men whose self-esteem is very, very low. With Kamala Harris rallies, you actually make friends, you see good people. You see people who care… With Donald Trump’s rallies, it’s his way or you must be hated.”

Jasmine Amaya, originally from Los Angeles, California, drove to New York and then Harrisburg just to attend one of the vice president’s rallies. Amaya “loves Kamala more every day” and says her policies make sense.

Amaya, along with her dog Fezco, came with some self-made signs that she wanted to stand behind Harris and wave in support. But he was not allowed to bring them to the event.

“People come up to me and ask how much they cost, and I was like, ‘I should have brought more,'” he said. “I just didn’t think about it.”

As people began to head toward the entrance, Joe Haverl of the Fellowship Tract League of Lebanon, Ohio, was one of two men carrying a cross that said “Jesus the Only Hope” for the crowd to see as they entered.

“We’re not here to highlight who I vote for,” Joe Haverl said. “We’re here because there are multitudes of people here, and people need Jesus, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. Everybody needs Jesus Christ.”

Haverl said they also worked Trump’s rally at the Farm Show in August because of the large crowd of people. The men said they had drug and other problems and wanted to share their religious message.

“We’re not here to take down Kamala. We’re not here to lift up Trump,” he said. “We are here to exalt the name of Jesus, that is why we are here. This world has dug itself a hole that no political party can dig.”

Carolyn Selvey, Tanya Butler, Theresa Chisholm and John Butler said they were relying on Kamala Harris to bring a positive message to the country after November 5. Selvey, of York, said this was his first political rally and he hoped he heard a good message from the vice president encouraging people to vote.

“She is a better candidate for president of the United States of America,” he said. “She’ll get us back on track.”

John Butler of Harrisburg said he hoped to see a candidate willing to fight for their freedoms and “turn the page.”

“What you hear from the other side is simply negative,” he said. “It’s ugly. I want to hear policy. I want to hear how to bring everyone together.”

Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Contact him at [email protected] or on X at @DAMattToth.