Pennsylvania, the ‘Swingiest’ State | Washington DC, DC Patch

Through Sept. 13, Vice President Kamala Harris has visited Pennsylvania 12 times. Most of her campaign stops have been in red counties that supported former President Donald Trump in 2020. Along the way, Harris has made an assortment of campaign promises and highlighted her resume in an effort to drum up support for her presidential bid. Harris is on a mission to familiarize voters with her credentials and her vision for the future. A September New York Times/Siena poll found that nearly a third of voters don’t know who Harris is.

Both Harris and Trump have targeted Pennsylvania, the “swingiest” swing state in a must-win presidential election. Together, they have visited the commonwealth two dozen times, not including separate visits by Harris’ vice running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Trump’s vice pick, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. When Harris touched down at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria Airport in early September, she was joined by Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, his wife, Gisele, and Johnstown’s Democratic Mayor, Frank Janakovic. Johnstown, a small city in Cambria County, has a population of 18,000. In 2020, Cambria County voted for Trump over Biden by a vote of 68 percent to 31 percent. During another stop in Wilkes-Barre, part of Luzerne County, Harris pledged for the first time to lower federal employment standards. The 2020 election results showed Trump beating Biden in Wilkes-Barre by a margin of 57% to 42%. Those are powerful margins that Harris would need to overcome to dent Trump’s popularity.

Harris doubled down on her economic opportunity and pro-small business agenda. If elected, Harris promised to “eliminate unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs and create jobs for people without a four-year degree, knowing that requiring a degree does not necessarily reflect a person’s skills.” Instead, Harris called for alternative paths to good-paying jobs, such as apprenticeships and vocational or adult education programs. Voters who have cast ballots since the Clinton administration have recognized Harris’s promises as empty. President Bill Clinton created GEAR UP, a 1998 program designed to better prepare high school students for the workforce. The Department of Education wasted millions on the failed program. In a business world that relies heavily on technology, especially the STEM professions — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — a vocational degree rarely replaces a college degree.

Harris then, citing her credentials as former California attorney general, referred to “transnational” cartels, saying, “I know these cartels firsthand, and as president I will make sure we prosecute them to every extent of the law for pushing poison like fentanyl on our children.”

In 2022, approximately 73,838 people in the United States died from drug overdoses involving fentanyl, the highest number of fentanyl overdose deaths on record, and a significant increase from the 36,319 reported in 2019, just weeks after President Joe Biden and Harris were inaugurated. Their open border agenda began immediately. Fentanyl overdoses are the driving force behind the opioid epidemic, accounting for the majority of overdose deaths in the U.S.

Reducing fentanyl deaths is an action Harris, the “Border Czar,” could take today if she were to enforce immigration laws that prevent cartels and other illegal aliens from entering the country without inspection. Of all of Harris’ hollow promises, none is less compelling than her pledge to prosecute drug cartels. As she campaigns from swing state to swing state, drug traffickers are crossing the Southwest border every day, smuggling their deadly drugs into American communities like Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre. In Pennsylvania, overdose deaths rose 16.4% in 2020 and have continued to climb to 5,438 reported overdose deaths in 2021, a 6% increase year-over-year. To put it more starkly, an average of 15 Pennsylvanians died of drug overdoses every day last year. Harris has failed in her most important duty: keeping America safe.

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Joe Guzzardi is an analyst at the Institute for Sound Public Policy. Contact him at [email protected]