Harris campaign planning weekend push across Pennsylvania

Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the SEIU convention in Philadelphia May 21, 2024 (screen capture from White House video)

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is launching an extensive mobilization effort across Pennsylvania this weekend that will lead up to a Monday rally featuring Gov. Josh Shapiro and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.  

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) will be on hand in Montgomery County for a volunteer canvassing kick-off, and Shapiro is the headliner at an event in Cumberland County on Saturday morning. In preparation, the Harris campaign has held press conferences with local Democratic leaders in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Erie and has two more planned in Pittsburgh and Scranton on Friday. 

President Joe Biden said Sunday he was bowing out of his reelection bid, and quickly endorsed Harris, who has received support from enough delegates to clinch the party’s official nomination during a virtual roll call vote slated for early August.

Whitmer and Shapiro are widely considered to be on the short list to be Harris’ vice president, although Whitmer has said she has no plans to seek higher office. Shapiro said this week he hadn’t yet submitted paperwork for the VP vetting process. 

The Harris campaign said it has had more than 100,000 volunteers sign up to join the campaign nationwide, including over 4,000 in Pennsylvania who have signed up for this weekend’s events. More than 8,000 people have signed up online to join the campaign in Pennsylvania since Harris announced her campaign last Sunday.

The campaign now has some 200 staffers and 36 coordinated offices across the state, in safely blue areas like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia,  as well as counties that traditionally vote Republican, like York and Lancaster. 

The weekend push in Pennsylvania  is the state campaign’s largest get-out-the vote initiative  ever. Its last statewide coordinated effort came in April, when the campaign, then headlined by Biden, opened more than two dozen offices statewide before and after the state’s primary election.

The Trump campaign did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday. Trump’s campaign has opened offices in Pennsylvania over the past two months including in Philadelphia, Reading and Lancaster, and in May, the campaign launched its Trump Force 47 volunteer outreach initiative.