The message was clear and consistent, repeated time and time again Saturday afternoon inside the Geigle Complex at Reading High School.
There are just 16 days to go until Election Day. Which means it’s time to dig in and make a final push.
About 200 Berks County residents gathered Saturday at the Geigle to hear U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speak about what she described as the importance of electing Democrats up and down the ballot and the effort it’s going to take to make that happen.
Ocasio-Cortez, whose 14th Congressional District in New York includes parts of Queens and the Bronx, spoke about the importance of working with fellow Democrats to pass legislation that she believes puts people first. She urged attendees to not only go out and vote but to ensure others in their communities vote as well.
“I want to ask something of each and every one of you here today, because we don’t organize down, we organize up,” she said. “We need to bring our families to the polls, we need to bring our friends to the polls and let them know why voting is important.
“Because not voting is a vote,” she continued. “Not voting is a choice — it’s an active choice. And if we count ourselves out, what we are choosing is to allow someone else to decide our future.”
Reading’s importance
Ocasio-Cortez talked about how a city like Reading, located in one of the most important battleground states in the country, will play a key role in determining whether former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris ends up in the White House.
“Reading is going to decide this election,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez said people in the political world often look at a city like Reading, which has a history of low voter turnout, and think that it’s not worth spending time there to campaign.
“I feel the opposite, I feel like folks don’t vote because we don’t come to these places,” she said. “So that’s why I’m here.”
Ocasio-Cortez said she has built her career on reaching out to people who feel forgotten by the political system and in turn decide not to take part in it. When she first ran for office in 2018, she said, she was able to win not by winning over traditional voters but by activating new ones.
“We worked with a broad coalition of people who were sick of politics as usual,” she said. “And we decided to do something that everyone tells you not to do — we talked to people who didn’t vote.
“We talked to people who felt like the system doesn’t care about them so they’re not going to care about it,” she added. “We talked to all sorts of people, and what happened on Election Day was that voter turnout increased by 65%.”
Ocasio-Cortez said she believes a similar situation can happen in Reading.
“What I often say is that some of the biggest swing voters in this election are not red to blue — they’re couch to booth,” she said.
Pennsylvania connection
Reading is somewhat familiar to Ocasio-Cortez. She told the crowd Saturday that when her grandfather first moved to the continental U.S. from Puerto Rico, he settled in nearby Pottstown.
She was living in the Bronx and said she spent her childhood driving past Reading shuttling between New York and Pottstown.
The city is important to her, Ocasio-Cortez said. And it’s also an important part of Harris’ path to winning the presidency — which would be a big deal for communities like those found in Reading.
“Kamala Harris will be the first woman president of the United States,” she said. “She is the daughter of immigrants, she is a Black woman who will be a powerful leader for this country and she comes from a working class background.
“But as we know, if you come from a working class background you have to work twice as hard to get half as far,” she added. “If you are a woman you have to work twice as hard to get half as far. If you are a Black woman, if you come from a family of immigrants, you work four times as hard.”
And she said that includes during this last stretch of the campaign.
“We know that the playing field is not even,” the congresswoman said. “We know that’s true but we also know that it’s possible. She needs to work, and we need to work, 100 times as hard to pull this out.”
Ocasio-Cortez said a lot of work is needed not just to make sure Harris becomes president but to elect Democrats up and down the ballot so her agenda can be successful.
Houlahan speaks
One of those down-ballot candidates is U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, who organized Ocasio-Cortez’ visit to Reading High Saturday.
Houlahan, a Chester County Democrat first elected to Congress in 2018, is competing against Republican Neil Young in the general election. The two are competing in the 6th Congressional District, which covers parts of Chester and Berks counties, including Reading.
She encouraged the crowd to remain focused over the last few crucial weeks of the campaign.
“Ignore the polls, ignore the pundits, ignore the haters, ignore all the people out there who are trying to make your life miserable. Make sure you continue what you have been doing for the past several months,” she said.
Houlahan echoed Ocasio-Cortez’s sentiment about the importance of electing Harris, saying the alternative would be disastrous.
“If we reelect the former president, he has promised — and believe him — mass deportations,” she said, referencing comments Trump has made during the campaign. “He has promised — and believe him — to turn the military against his enemies. He says that a solution to crime is a day-long purge.”
Houlahan said Trump had a part in taking away the bodily autonomy of women, referring to his appointment of Supreme Court justices who overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. She said he has called men and women in uniform “suckers” and “losers” and that he has praised businessman Elon Musk for firing workers.
“So this is what’s at stake,” she said. “Please understand what the stakes are.”
Before Houlahan took the stage, several other Democratic elected officials addressed the crowd. That included Reading Mayor Eddie Moran; U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean of Montgomery County, who represents parts of Berks in the 4th Congressional District, state Sen. Judy Schwank, state Rep. Manny Guzman and state Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz.
