Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff emphasized putting country ahead of party Monday in a Northeast Pennsylvania campaign swing on behalf of his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Aiming squarely at Republicans, the Democratic presidential nominee’s husband told a small Wilkes-Barre rally that “conservatives who have never voted for a Democrat in their lives … are coming with us.”
“Once you actually listen to Kamala's policies, you may not agree with every one of them, but you find out you agree with a lot of them,” he said inside King’s College’s Sheehy-Farmer Student Center. “You love her background as a prosecutor. You love her background as a district attorney and attorney general who fought for the rights of all Californians. You've seen her in the United States Senate, sticking up for everyone.”
Harris has withstood “everyone trying to lie about her,” Emhoff said.
“So, if you're a conservative, Republican, moderate, independent, come on board,” he said.
Largely because of Democratic party-switching, Luzerne County recently flipped Republican in voter registration. Republicans last had the majority in a presidential election in the county in 1968. But Emhoff’s visit targeted many traditional Republicans wary of another Trump term.
As of Monday, 15 days remained in the campaign and Harris, President Donald Trump or their surrogates are crisscrossing Pennsylvania, considered crucial to winning the presidency.
Trump visited Bucks County on Sunday as actors Adam Scott and Ed Helms visited Scranton. As her husband visited Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Harris campaigned in Chester County. More visits are expected.
“She's everywhere and anywhere over these last several weeks, and she'll continue to do that, and he's just running and hiding,” Emhoff said, contrasting his wife to Trump. “What he's leaving behind him is this fog, this fog of misinformation, this fog of disinformation, this fog of lies, this fog of gas lighting.”
Emhoff ripped Trump’s “good businessperson” record as “an illusion.”
“It's littered with failure and bankruptcies and unpaid vendors and broken promises and lawsuits. That's what his business career was,” he said. “He was down on his luck. ‘The Apprentice’ (Trump’s former NBC TV series) saved him.”
Trump routinely calls Harris “a communist” or “a Marxist,” highlighting her economist father’s left-wing bent.
“She’s a capitalist,” Emhoff said. “I was a business lawyer. She gets what I did for a living, and she understands the economy, so she's got a plan that's going to grow our economy, help our small businesses grow.”
He highlighted Harris’ plan to offer startup small businesses $50,000 in tax deductions to “grow 25 million new small businesses in our first term.”
Emhoff was accompanied in Wilkes-Barre by two Republicans, former Illinois U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh and former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan.
Duncan called Trump “a fake Republican.”
“Donald Trump is a liar. He has lied his entire life. He's lied in his personal life,” Duncan said. We've got to see that play out in courtrooms, in divorce cases … He's lied to his investors; he's lied to his bankers. He's lied to us as Americans. He lied to us about the 2020 election (outcome).”
Walsh said Harris “is America.”
“Donald Trump's trying to scare the hell out of us to get his vote,” Walsh said. “Kamala Harris is appealing to our better angels.”
Local furniture store owner Ronne Kurlancheek, who grew up a Republican, said Trump “fails the character test.”
“Republicans have values. Donald Trump does not. Republicans believe in individual freedom. Donald Trump does not. Republicans trust the rule of law. Donald Trump does not,” Kurlancheek said.
Before the Wilkes-Barre rally, Emhoff visited Scranton’s Plot Section neighborhood, not far from Green Ridge corners where President Joe Biden and his friends went to movies in their youths.
Accompanied by Mayor Paige Cognetti, Emhoff rang doorbells at two Dean Street homes.
On one porch, Emhoff chatted with Jeff Cox, who wore a blue New York Mets baseball cap.
“Are you a Mets fan? he asked. “I’m a Dodgers fan.”
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated Mets in the sixth game of the National League Championship Series and clinched a spot in the World Series against the New York Yankees.
They chatted briefly with Cognetti about improvements in the economy before the mayor and Emhoff crossed the street to meet Nancy Gibbons and her daughter, Rachel, on their porch.
Rachel Gibbons wore a Harris-Walz camouflage baseball cap with orange lettering.
“I like your hat,” Emhoff said.
“We got 15 days left,” he told them. “We’re out here in Scranton. We’ve got to get this neighborhood out (to vote) and we win this neighborhood. We win this day, we can win.”
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Nancy Gibbons said. “We’re all in.”
“How about you?” he asked Rachel Gibbons.
“Women's rights,” she replied. “I want to have the same rights that my mom and her mom achieved for me so my daughter (could have them).”
After that, the motorcade rolled down Interstate 81 — occasionally getting stuck in heavy traffic — along Route 309 to the Lands at Hillside Farms.
“Kamala likes honey,” he told a clerk.
With Cognetti nearby, he picked out a jar of honey and also sought a scented candle.
His motorcade then rolled down Interstate 81 — occasionally getting stuck in heavy traffic — to Route 309 to the Lands at Hillside Farms in Shavertown.
Cognetti was at his side as he picked out a jar of honey. Emhoff also bought a scented candle.
“Kamala likes honey,” he told a clerk.
From there, it was on to King’s College where he was scheduled to deliver a speech backing his wife.
