Harris targets Republican voters in Pennsylvania charm offensive

LANCASTER— With six weeks until the presidential election, the Harris campaign hosted its first in-person organizing event aimed at winning over Republicans in Pennsylvania, in conservative Lancaster County.

“If you’ve got a coalition happening that stretches all the way from AOC on the left to Dick Cheney on the right,” Ann Womble, Republicans for Harris co-chair said at the gathering at Barn At Stoner Commons, “you know this is a big tent and you know that we can find a place in this effort, even if we don’t agree with all the policies.”

Womble, who was the former Lancaster County Republican Party’s chairperson from 2012 to 2014, leads the Harris campaign’s effort to win over Republicans in Pennsylvania with former U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood, who represented a district in the Philadelphia suburbs from 1993 to 2005.

Greenwood called himself a “real Republican” to the 100 people in attendance on Tuesday, detailing his background in elected office as a Republican. He encouraged the audience to go out and talk to their friends who are undecided in the election and say the choice is “pretty simple.”

“It’s between a guy who is mentally, morally, psychologically, intellectually unfit to be the president of the United States,” Greenwood said. “And a woman who is decent, honest, who has spent her whole life serving others and who I believe will make us proud again and take us forward.”

Greenwood, who said he supported every Republican presidential candidate from Richard Nixon to Mitt Romney, also said his answer to undecided Republicans who might be concerned that Harris “is too liberal,” is that there will be Republicans in office to make sure she passes legislation with bipartisan support.

He pointed to bipartisan legislation passed under the Biden administration, including the infrastructure bill, and CHIPS and Science Act.

Greenwood and Womble were joined by former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois, and former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock of Virginia.

Comstock said in past elections she wrote in Republican candidates instead of voting for Trump, but is backing Harris this time, who she said would “stand up to dictators,” and “follow the rule of law.”

Comstock criticized Trump’s comments during a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania on Monday, where the former president referred to himself as a “protector” of women.

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“I want a woman who understands about protecting women, not Donald Trump who is absurdly saying just last night ‘I’m going to be your protector,” Comstock said.

Walsh, who voted for Trump in 2016, said he would love for Comstock to be president one day and for Duncan to be governor of Georgia.

Walsh said during her speech at the Democratic National Convention Harris sounded like the late GOP President Ronald Reagan. Trump, he said, “bad mouths” the country.

Duncan said that Harris would be the “steady hand” that the country needs, and said she’s “entertaining the thoughts and minds of the middle” during her campaign.

Trump campaign spokesperson Kush Desai responded to the organizing event by telling the Capital-Star that “if so-called ‘Republicans’ are campaigning for another four years of unfettered illegal immigration and rising prices under Kamala Harris, they’re neither Republicans nor worth listening to.”

While the Trump campaign doesn’t appear to have an active coalition courting Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, his campaign has been endorsed by former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

Craig Snyder, former chief of staff to the late Pennsylvania GOP U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who leads a “Haley Voters for Harris” coalition attended Tuesday’s event but didn’t deliver remarks. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is supporting Trump’s presidential campaign after ending her own, has slammed the effort using her name to try to win over votes for Harris.

During the 2024 Republican Party primary, Trump won Pennsylvania, although Haley received 158,000 votes, 16%, statewide, even though she ended her candidacy a month before the primary election.

Haley received 20% of the vote in Lancaster County during the 2024 primary.

Womble believes some Haley voters can be won over and told reporters that Lancaster County is full of what she called “traditional Republicans,” that aren’t particularly supportive of Trump this year.

Trump won Lancaster County by 20 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and carried the county over Joe Biden by 16 points in 2020. But Democrats have made ground in recent statewide elections, including Democrat Josh Shapiro, who only lost the county by 1 point in his successful bid for governor in 2022.

Although the election is 42 days away, only one candidate from either ticket has made an appearance in Lancaster County in 2024: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s candidate for vice president, who met with volunteers at a field office earlier this month.

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican Party’s candidate for vice president, has not visited the county, but wasn’t too far away on Saturday with appearances in Berks County for a rally and an interview with conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson in Dauphin County.

Speaking to reporters after his speech, Walsh said he believes that Trump selecting Vance as his running mate hurt the GOP ticket’s chances with independent and Republican voters on the fence.

“There would not be this movement, I’d argue,” Walsh told reporters, if Trump didn’t select Vance and “double down on ugly, ugly MAGA.”

He added that Harris “ain’t a flaming lib,” which he intended as a compliment.

“She’s not a crazy lib,” he told reporters. “That’s not who she is, and she can’t get elected that way.”

Duncan told reporters that he thinks Harris is doing her part with fundraising and building coalitions attempting to appeal to the middle, seemingly a reference to Harris announcing different policy positions viewed as more moderate in comparison to her previous presidential campaign.

“At the end of the day, Donald Trump continues to make it harder for himself, because he continues to pick on folks like Brian Kemp, the governor of my home state, he’s a great conservative and trusted by both Democrats and Republicans, he continues to stick his foot in his mouth,” Duncan told reporters.

Although Kemp and Trump have feuded publicly, Kemp is backing Trump’s candidacy for the White House, after not supporting him in the Republican Party primary election.

Kemp was in Pennsylvania on Tuesday to campaign for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick in Delaware County.

In addition to a focus on Lancaster County, Womble said the Harris campaign believes that the four key markets where there are persuadable Republicans and independents are Allegheny, Butler and Erie counties; suburbs of Harrisburg; and Philadelphia’s collar counties.

The Harris campaign launched a new ad series in Pennsylvania on Tuesday aimed at rural and GOP voters who may not want to vote for Trump. It features farmer Bob Lange, of Malvern, Chester County, a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump twice, but said he’s switching to vote for Harris in November.

Harris will be in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, while Vance is scheduled to be in Bucks County on Saturday.

The presidential race in battleground Pennsylvania remains extremely close, with the latest poll from Marist showing Harris and Trump tied at 49% each.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.