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As Pittsburgh Steelers fans know, there are times when your team isn’t just losing but seems utterly lost. Times when the squad’s most popular player is the second-string quarterback, when its most cherished hope is that a simple substitution can turn a season around.
As Steelers fans also know, that works out better in some cases than others. But on Sunday, as Joe Biden limped from the field while the play-by-play guys wondered aloud about concussion protocols, the ball was placed into the hands of Vice President Kamala Harris. And she’s already put points on the board:
Her campaign says more than 2,500 Pennsylvanians volunteered for campaign work in one day — quadrupling their previous high. Nationwide, the campaign reported $81 million in contributions the day after Harris came off the bench — another record — as Pennsylvania Democrats coalesced behind her.
Still (and I promise: no more sports analogies for a while), this is just the opening drive. And one of the first political footballs Harris will have to handle is key to Western Pennsylvania.
Republicans quickly began painting Harris as a radical who is hostile to fracking for natural gas, a key industry in Western Pennsylvania. We’re already seeing Fox News stories that warn of a “backlash” on the issue, and Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Dave McCormick’s campaign is promising “a massive campaign … about the dangers of Kamala Harris and Bob Casey working together to push radical liberal policies” on energy and other issues.
As California’s attorney general, Harris went after fossil-fuel polluters and fought efforts to frack off the state’s coastline. She championed green causes in the Senate, too. A lot of talk about that is coming soon to a screen near you, along with footage from Harris’ appearance on a 2019 CNN town hall,
As a presidential hopeful in a crowded Democratic primary, Harris used the forum to stake out a staunchly environmental agenda — not least when she was asked, “Will you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking [on] your first day in office?”
“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” said Harris. “The residual impact of fracking is enormous in terms of the … health and safety of communities.”
This part won’t make its way into TV ads, but Harris actually didn’t threaten to end fracking unilaterally. She said that as president she could halt it on public lands, “and then there has to be legislation.”
And while the Biden/Harris administration has made huge investments in greener energy, it has also presided over record levels of oil and gas production.
A president could try to constrict the industry without imposing an outright ban, as Biden sought to do by halting plans to export more natural gas overseas. But a judge overturned that moratorium, and efforts to regulate the industry inevitably face and often lose court challenges. That’s even more likely now, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that will likely constrain regulators.
But Dave Callahan of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a regional fracking advocacy group, says the challenges are real.
“So much more could be done” to boost the industry, he said. “We've been treated in a punitive manner from the Biden/Harris administration.”
Callahan ticked off a list of fracking’s benefits, ranging from the economic activity it generates to the energy security it provides for the U.S. and its allies.
“We don't engage with political advocacy, [but] a ban would certainly get our attention,” he said. “It would seem to fly in the face of the support that the industry has here in Pennsylvania.”
Such concerns are one reason many Democrats hope Harris picks Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running-mate. Shapiro has backed Harris’ candidacy, and Callahan said the governor has demonstrated “an acknowledgement [of] the importance of the industry, and that's something we hope would extend to the federal government.”
As I wrote in this space last week, there are reasons why many Pennsylvania Democrats weren’t openly calling for Biden to step aside. The expectation, in the words of one loyalist, is that Harris “is going to shore up things in Philadelphia, but we have work to do out here.” And it will be easy for attack ads to depict her as a liberal Democrat from San Francisco because … well … she is a liberal Democrat from San Francisco.
We’re already hearing that message from Republicans such as Rob Mercuri, a state representative who is challenging Chris Deluzio in the 17th Congressional District this fall. Mercuri told me that having Harris atop the ticket could change the race “because of her California values. She wants to ban fracking and the energy industry in Western Pa. and across the country. … We need an agenda that is focused on real growth, free-market principles, and the needs of the manufacturers in Western Pa. That is not what Kamala Harris is all about.”
Deluzio isn’t backing away. “America is more energy secure and dominant than we’ve ever been,” his campaign responded, adding that Deluzio “won’t let us backtrack” on economic and environmental progress.
“[H]e expects that [Harris] will take seriously the issues and priorities of Western Pa.,” the campaign said. “Donald Trump certainly won’t.”
Using fracking as a wedge issue doesn’t always work. Republicans tried it on Biden and Harris in 2020, to no avail. And the politics of fracking may be more delicate than you may think. A 2022 Muhlenberg College poll found that 44% of Pennsylvanians either strongly or somewhat oppose fracking — only slightly behind the 48% who say they strongly or somewhat support it.
Too, Harris’ positions and personal background are lighting up environmental groups, and early polling suggests she outperforms Biden with Democrats the party desperately needs — including young voters and voters of color.
Democrats just called the biggest audible in modern political history. The first sign of how well it works will be whether the party’s base comes off the sidelines.
