Charles McElwee, the founding editor of RealClearPennsylvania, wrote on Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris’s pro-abortion, anti-Catholic stances may imperil her chances of winning northeastern Pennsylvania.
President Joe Biden grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is “home to one of the highest concentrations of white Catholics,” as it is a “bastion of Irish-Catholic families,” McElwee wrote in Politico.
McElwee explained that Biden’s ties and cultural roots helped him overperform in Lackawanna County, an area that is increasingly Republican.
In contrast, Harris does not have the same connection to greater Scranton/Wilkes-Barre that Biden had:
It’s not just the loss of Biden — an older, white, Catholic man with an affinity for the working class — from the top of the ticket that worries local Democrats. It’s the cultural dissonance with Harris, a Californian and woman of color who has spearheaded the party’s post-Dobbs abortion messaging. That profile makes her an awkward fit in a closely watched, economically hard-pressed working-class region that’s historically been a locus of anti-abortion activity.
Biden isn’t wildly popular here. But as a native son, Biden is viewed through a nostalgic lens. To many in this once staunchly Democratic region, he embodies an older iteration of the party that was closely tied to organized labor and focused on economic issues. Even though Biden moved to Delaware as a child, he remained in close contact with the city of his birth and was seen locally as a protective force against the national party’s progressive flank.
Harris’s political challenges for winning over this part of the Keystone State are not limited to abortion; she also grilled a Catholic judicial during her time in the Senate due to his part of the fraternal Catholic group, the Knights of Columbus.
Phil Condron, an advertising executive and Scrantonian, said, “We don’t have the Catholic connection with Harris. We don’t have the local connection with Harris.”
He added, “So there’s really no reason to believe that she can approach the numbers that Biden was able to get when he ran last time.”
Harris also reportedly declined to attend the Catholic and Al Smith fundraiser dinner, which is the first time a presidential candidate did skipped the historic dinner since 1984.
Vince Galko, a Scranton-area GOP strategist, said, “There’s so many Democrats here because they grew up Democrat and they’re still registered Democrat, but they’re voting more Republican. There are still people who grew up Catholic and say they’re Catholic, but probably haven’t been to church in years or aren’t raising their families in any kind of Catholic tradition.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
