“We Gotta Keep the Vibes Up”: Two Pennsylvania Experts Speak

Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. There are hypothetical routes to the White House for both candidates that don’t go through the commonwealth, but let’s face it—winning Pennsylvania makes victory a hell of a lot easier. Kadida Kenner runs the New Pennsylvania Project , a voter outreach group modeled on Stacey Abrams’s efforts in Georgia. J.J. Abbott is with Commonwealth Communications , a progressive political consultancy. They spoke with TNR editor Michael Tomasky on September 24 about what’s happening on the ground across the state and what the Harris-Walz team needs to do to win.

As Abbott put it, “We gotta keep the vibes up.” Kenner emphasized engaging voters not just in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh but across the state, which is full of small colleges and universities and pockets of immigrant communities where there are plenty of votes to be harvested—in a state where every vote might literally matter.