“I have the first Harris sign in my town,” said Bill Leiner, a dedicated Democratic presidential campaign volunteer in Allentown, a city of 125,000 in the pivotal state of Pennsylvania.
“As soon as I heard it was Harris, I cut it up” to remove the name of President Joe Biden “and taped it up,” he told AFP, proud of his DIY project that allowed him to quickly have signage with the sole name of Kamala Harris, vice-president of the United States and now a candidate for the White House.
Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race on Sunday “galvanizes people” and “I think we’re going to have a blue wave,” the color of the Democrats, confides this 70-year-old nurse, sitting in the garden of his house located in a residential area.
And, to take over, there was no doubt in his mind that it had to be the vice president “because if we don’t choose Kamala Harris, we lose the election.”
“I am optimistic,” he adds.
“It will reduce [Donald Trump] to pieces because she is already on the case. The prosecutor against the repeat offender,” notes Mr. Leiner, referring to the former’s career as a magistrate and the latter’s recent criminal conviction.
A few meters away, in his shed, dozens of placards from old election campaigns and social awareness campaigns are piled up.
Emotion
Like him, Jimmy Spang Jr. is not on his first campaign and he has known “Uncle Joe” since the time when he was a United States senator (1973-2009).
“I picked him up several times at the airport, I consider him a friend,” he told AFP, sitting at his usual table in the historic Ritz Barbecue restaurant – his “conference room” – known for its ice cream.
A short walk away is the Allentown Fairgrounds, where he served as security for a very long time.
“Joe is a good man,” he said, his throat tight, before breaking down in tears. “I’m upset because he didn’t do anything wrong. He doesn’t deserve the way he was treated.”
“If Joe supports Kamala, I support Kamala. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense,” said Mr. Spang, 66.
Retired from the security company he founded and whose crest he wears on his polo shirt, he is now responsible for event security for the local Democratic committee.
Kamala Harris is going to “take up the torch” and she’s “going to succeed” because she has “the mind of a prosecutor,” says Mr. Spang, who is very moved, particularly at the idea of a second Trump presidency.
“If Trump wins, the country will be in great danger because of the discord sown by the people who control his campaign,” he fears.
For Shapiro
For Bill Leiner, the nurse, the only motivation for the billionaire’s candidacy is “to avoid going to prison, as he did [le premier ministre israélien, Benjamin] Netanyahu.
Blaming the Republican’s lies as “as numerous as the drops of the rain that has just fallen”, he said he was “very optimistic” that Kamala Harris would make short work of him by “confronting him with the facts”.
As for their favorite for the vice presidency, both activists put forward the same name: Josh Shapiro, Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, one of the ” swing states “, these key states which should be decisive in November.
The duo Harris and Shapiro — or “Kamala and Josh,” as he calls them — is a “sacred union,” says Jimmy Spang, imagining Joe Biden in the role of a wise man and, why not, with a position of “special advisor” at the White House.
Without being involved in the campaign, J. Marc Rittle evokes “the great hope and enthusiasm” he felt upon learning of Joe Biden’s withdrawal.
“In my area, we really have no choice but to vote blue,” says the executive director of New Bethany, a nonprofit organization that helps people in economic and social distress.
“I’m for Harris. […] “I really think a Harris administration will take us far,” he adds. “Vote blue,” he urges.