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Pennsylvania Democrats had a good week at the DNC. What’s in store? • Pennsylvania Capital-Star

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Pennsylvania Democrats had a good week at the DNC. What’s in store? • Pennsylvania Capital-Star

CHICAGO — Pennsylvania was the most popular kid in class at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, and the state with its 19 electoral votes was well represented in Chicago and on the convention’s evening broadcasts. Each night featured a speaker from the Keystone State, with Lt. Gov. Austin Davis on Monday; Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on Tuesday; Gov. Josh Shapiro on Wednesday; and Sen. Bob Casey on Thursday.

Shapiro was arguably Pennsylvania’s biggest presence at the DNC, in part because of his status as the runner-up to presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. He was booked consistently throughout the week, speaking at numerous state delegation breakfasts, drawing the ire of GOP candidate former President Donald Trump, and appearing regularly on cable news channels.

Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro Energizes DNC With Call for ‘Freedom’

Project 2025 played a major role in Congress as Democrats continued to try to tie the conservative policy plan to reshape the federal government and expand presidential power to Trump.

Kenyatta, a candidate for the position of State Auditor General, held the giant Project 2025 book on stage on Tuesday night, telling the audience it was a “radical plan to drag us back, “Bankrupt the middle class and raise prices for working families like yours and mine.”

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but several members of his administration were involved in its creation.

“It’s a big, heavy book full of bad ideas, and it was one of those moments where we were able to really use the images to help people understand how seriously Trump and this administration are committed to sticking to his flawed theory of the case,” Kenyatta told the Capital-Star on the final day of the convention.

Our vote is the highest testament to the collective power we have… The goal at this time is to use our collective power to elect someone who cares about us, and then work side by side with her to help implement the things she talks about.

– Pennsylvania Representative Malcolm Kenyatta

He added that Project 2025 should be a warning to Democrats about what they think a second Trump term would look like.

“When Trump came onto the political scene, he came on the plane with the proposition that ‘America sucks,’ and it sucks in large part because our neighbors, the people in our communities, people we don’t know — they’re somehow part of the demise of America,” Kenyatta said, “and the only way to fix it is if we give him all the power.”

While Trump’s first term was a period of the former president “wandering around,” Kenyatta said, the architects of Project 2025 have laid out a plan to achieve some of the goals of the party’s far-right wing, such as a national ban on abortion and the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education.

Kenyatta added that he does not believe in the political concept of giving all the power to one person to solve everything.

“Our vote is the highest demonstration of the collective power that we have,” he said. “If we elect Kamala Harris in November and then say, ‘Okay, we’ll see you at the next convention in four years. I hope you solve all the problems!’ we’ve missed the point. The goal right now is to use our collective power to elect someone who cares about us, and then work with her to help implement the things that she’s talking about.”

At the final Pennsylvania delegate breakfast on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-12th District) urged the state’s delegates still in the race to keep the convention’s momentum going.

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-12th District) speaks to Pennsylvania delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 22, 2024. (Capital-Star photo by Kim Lyons)

“We’re here sharpening our tools so that we can do the heavy lifting, not for Kamala Harris. We’re not doing the heavy lifting for Summer Lee or any of my colleagues,” Lee said, but rather for marginalized and vulnerable people. “Think about that person whose name is in that book, in the hundreds and hundreds of pages of Project 2025, who do we see there that we have to make sure is not touched by the evil and the horror that they have lined up and ready for them.”

Davis, Pennsylvania’s youngest and first-ever Black lieutenant governor, delivered a speech at the convention Monday night, talking about the importance of building bridges. He appeared on stage with Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sarah Rodriguez, Harris County Executive Lena Hidalgo of Texas and California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, all of whom shared stories of how Harris had impacted their communities.

“I grew up with working-class parents in a small steel town in southwestern Pennsylvania, and to have the opportunity to speak on such a national stage was incredibly humbling,” Davis told the Capital-Star. “It was just an example of how someone can live the American dream, so I hope that people who saw me saw that America should be a place where everyone has the same opportunity.”

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis speaks at DNC ​​about the importance of building bridges

Davis said the question he heard most often during the convention was whether Democrats can win Pennsylvania. “And I tell them, absolutely, we just have to keep showing up everywhere, competing in places where sometimes it’s not easy to be a Democrat,” he said.

When asked if there were any “red” areas in the state that he saw as areas that could turn blue, he pointed to central Pennsylvania as the area with the most potential, specifically the race in the 10th Congressional District between former WGAL anchor Janelle Stelson and Republican U.S. Congressman Scott Perry.

“I think we have a great candidate in Janelle Stelson,” he said. “I think there’s also a lot of energy with (state Rep.) Patty Kim running for state Senate. So I think Dauphin, Lancaster, Cumberland — an area governor Shapiro won when we were on the ballot.”

Davis said not everyone was completely taken with his TV stardom, however. His daughter Harper, whose birthday is next month, was asleep when he appeared Monday night. “We’re going to replay it for her, but she doesn’t care,” he said. “She only cares when I FaceTime her and she says, ‘Daddy, when are you coming home?'”

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