Kamala slammed for 'hiding' from 'working poor' with 'invite-only' stop in Johnstown, PA

If you wanted to see or hear Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in Johnstown, PA last Friday, you needed an invitation. Critics have accused her of “hiding” from the “working poor” in this battleground state.

Harris arrived at the airport and was ushered into her VP limo. She was driven down a road advertising the candidacy of her rival, former President Donald Trump, according to the New York Post. About 30 minutes later, Harris arrived at her destination, a local bookstore called Classic Elements where the media-avoiding vice president spoke to an invitation-only group eager to hear Harris’ plans for small business.

“She’s hiding from most of the people,” undecided voter Ed Luce told The Post. “She needs to convince a lot of the working poor people.” Those working people used to vote Democrat when the party had a greater affiliation with the working class that Trump now enjoys.

Johnstown hasn’t had affluent union jobs since a 1977 flood eliminated the mines and mills, the Post noted. It’s Trump's country now, as the former president won the town and surrounding county with 67 percent of the vote in 2016 and 2020.

“Old school Democrats are what the Republicans are now,” voter Jim Ardary told the Post, in reference to a Democratic Party that used to acknowledge blue-collar labor and patriotism in the same breath. Ardary tried to keep Trump protesters from disturbing Harris’ bookstore event on Friday night.

Despite these trends, Greg Daducra, vice president of United Steelworkers Local 2632 remains committed to the Democrats. “I still believe the Democrats are the working man’s party,” Greg Dadura told The Post. But a lot of his membership has deserted the party of the union leadership and will be voting for Trump on Nov. 5.

Trump came to Johnstown on Sept. 4 and offered an entirely different political show than Harris. The rally attracted more than 6,000 people who gathered in a local auditorium. Participants had to register but they didn’t need an invitation. The event had people standing in a line that went on two miles. When the auditorium reached capacity, the Trump campaign put a jumbotron outside of the building for people so more people could watch the rally.

The Biden-Harris campaign has made it a point to avoid media during campaign stopovers as well. At a recent stop-over in Lancaster Country to deliver a pep talk to campaign workers, vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) made a point of avoiding reporters and telling them to “not disrupt the program.” Harris and Walz also faced criticism when they finally sat for a pre-recorded question-and-answer session with CNN’s Dana Bash that was highly controlled.