Philadelphia Democratic leader blames ‘elitist’ Harris campaign’s ‘lack of respect’ for state loss

Philadelphia Democratic Chair Bob Brady has suggested that a lack of communication from the Harris campaign contributed to her loss in Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday, the former congressman told NBC10 that he “would’ve liked to see the Harris campaign, especially the national campaign, coordinate with us a little bit. Talk to us a little bit. Give us a little bit more resources. Show us some respect. Didn’t happen.”

He added: “They were just elitist and went out there, did their own thing, and didn’t include Democratic city committee or (ward leaders) or committee people. They just didn’t do it.”

The chairman argued that Harris’s brief campaign made it more important for her to connect with him and other Democrats in the city, asking, “Don’t you want to go to the people that have a proven record that know how to do this stuff and can help you along with it?”

“Didn’t happen,” he added.

Brady slammed Harris’s rally the night before the election outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, pointing to the road closures and how late it went, saying that, “You don’t want to hurt other people going to and from work.”

The chairman said previous nominees, such as Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton all worked side by side with him.

“They talked to us. They said, ‘What do we need to do?’ The Harris campaign never talked to us,” Brady told NBC10.

Pennsylvania was seen as the most important swing state for Harris to win in the election with its 19 electoral votes. Trump’s win in the state helped put him over the line to claim the White House for a second time.

For Democrats, running up the score in the blue city of Philadelphia is vital to win statewide. Harris won the city, but as of late Wednesday afternoon, her vote total of 547,729 is below Biden’s figures from the city when he beat Trump in 2020.

Similarly, turnout was also lower than in 2020 as of Wednesday, coming in at 62.89 percent. But Brady’s team thinks that when the counting of the votes concludes, the number of voters will be about the same as in 2020, adding that Democrats in the city worked on turning out voters.

“We did as much as we can,” Brady told NBC10.

Harris campaign spokesperson Brendan McPhillips pushed back against Brady’s comments on Wednesday, saying that the campaign in the state “knocked more than two million doors in the weekend leading up to Election Day, which is two million more doors than Bob Brady’s organization can claim to have knocked during his entire tenure as party chairman.”

“I don’t think that the Democrats that live in the city related to her,” Brady said of Harris. “And I don’t know why. I don’t know whether there was an elitist factor out there. I don’t know why she didn’t talk to them.”

McPhillips added: “No serious person can say they have an answer to what caused nationwide trends in the electorate less than 24 hours after polls closed.”

“If there’s any immediate takeaway from Philadelphia’s turnout this cycle, it is that Chairman Brady’s decades-long practice of fleecing campaigns for money to make up for his own lack of fundraising ability or leadership is a worthless endeavor that no future campaign should ever be forced to entertain again,” the spokesperson said.

The Democratic Philadelphia chair has been friends with Biden for a long time, and Brady said he doesn’t like how the president was treated after he was forced off the top of the ticket after his June debate with now-President-Elect Donald Trump.

“For one bad debate? Obama had a bad debate. [Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John] Fetterman had a horrible debate. And he did public appearances after that and was fine,” Brady told NBC10.