President Joe Biden isn’t “wildly popular” in his former hometown of Scranton, Pa., but as an Irish Catholic who grew up there, he certainly had deep cultural — and political — ties to the region, unlike Californian Kamala Harris, and that could lead to her losing the key battleground state.

In an analytical piece by POLITICO, the outlet noted that “Biden is viewed through a nostalgic lens” in the region, which is mostly white, working class, and mostly opposed to the very liberal abortion policies that Harris supports.

“To many in this once staunchly Democratic region, he embodies an older iteration of the party that was closely tied to organized labor and focused on economic issues. Even though Biden moved to Delaware as a child, he remained in close contact with the city of his birth and was seen locally as a protective force against the national party’s progressive flank,” the outlet reported.

While Biden’s reluctance to discuss abortion may have caused friction within the broader Democratic Party, it hasn’t been an issue in culturally conservative northeastern Pennsylvania. In contrast, Harris has been a prominent advocate for abortion rights—becoming the first vice president or president to visit a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic—and has consistently positioned herself further to the left compared to voters like those in the Catholic community in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Advertisement

POLITICO added:

Until this fateful summer, Harris’ Pennsylvania deployments were often to places like suburban Philadelphia as part of her “reproductive freedom” tour. Now, with a recent campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre, just 20 miles from Scranton in neighboring Luzerne County, Harris is clearly aiming to make inroads outside major metropolitan areas with a message geared toward “middle class working people.”

But if Luzerne and Scranton’s Lackawanna County are any indication, she has a heavy lift ahead of her.

Harris faces challenges that extend beyond the issue of abortion as the region gradually shifts to the right. Her standing was further undermined in 2018 when, as a senator, she intensely questioned a Catholic judicial nominee about his ability to remain impartial due to his involvement with the Knights of Columbus, a well-respected Catholic fraternal organization with a significant presence in northeastern Pennsylvania.

This line of questioning has become a focal point for a multi-million-dollar campaign in swing states like Pennsylvania, driven by CatholicVote, a conservative advocacy group. Capitalizing on this narrative, Trump referenced the Knights of Columbus incident in July at Turning Point Action’s Believers Summit, accusing Democrats of “[going] after Catholics.” Furthermore, his campaign launched “Catholics for Trump” earlier this month to support this effort.

“We don’t have the Catholic connection with Harris. We don’t have the local connection with Harris,” Phil Condron, an advertising executive and lifelong Scranton resident who describes himself as a “Joe Biden Democrat,” told POLITICO.

“So there’s really no reason to believe that she can approach the numbers that Biden was able to get when he ran last time,” he added.

The polls indicate a noticeable divide. A recent Franklin & Marshall College Poll showed Harris leading Trump by 3 points statewide in Pennsylvania. However, in the northeastern region of the state, Trump maintained a solid lead, with 50 percent supporting him compared to Harris’s 43 percent. Other polls have the race neck-and-neck or Trump slightly ahead in the Keystone State.

Christopher Borick, a pollster at Muhlenberg College, explained that Catholic voters in the northeast part of the state, particularly in Lackawanna County, shared enough common ground with Biden to support him. He added, “that’s not going to be the same equation with Kamala Harris.”

“She’ll have work to do,” said Borick, who grew up near Scranton.