Harris Staffers Went Rogue with Latino Outreach Efforts In Philadelphia After Repeated Gaffes, Report Finds

Kamala Harris's presidential campaign has faced heavy criticism over its handling of voter outreach since the November 5 elections, especially when it came to Black and Latino communities. President-elect Donald Trump, on the flip side, saw historic gains, winning around 42% of the demographic's support and conquering the Latino male vote bon his way to The White House.

Perhaps nowhere was that gap noticeable than in the heavily-coveted swing state of Pennsylvania, where analysts warned for weeks prior to the election that Dems were not doing enough to engage its 580,000 registered Latino voters. Trump eventually won the state, and its 19 electoral votes, by more than 100,000 votes.

However, a group of frustrated Democratic organizers in the city of Philadelphia conducted independent, rogue efforts to mobilize voters, highlighting broader dissatisfaction within the campaign regarding outreach and strategies, as The New York Times now reports.

NYT interviewed over 30 campaign staffers, volunteers, and operatives who paint a picture plagued with concerns about the campaign's approach prior to November, with many claiming they were discouraged from grassroots voter outreach, including attending community events, building relationships with local leaders, and registering new voters.

Despite raising $1.5 billion, organizers also criticized the campaign for insufficient investment in hiring Black and Latino staff or consulting firms with expertise in engaging diverse communities. Field offices in Philadelphia were often under-resourced, lacking basic supplies such as tables and printers, and sometimes located far from the neighborhoods they were meant to serve. Some offices relied on makeshift arrangements in public spaces until the month before Election Day.

The investigation paid special attention to an initiative called "Operation Dunkin'kirk", a play-on-words that combines the desperate World War II rescue mission (Dunkirk) with a Dunkin' Donuts in Philadelphia that served as the group's secret headquarters:

"Their mission was simple: Knock on the doors of as many Black and Latino voters as they could in neighborhoods that they believed the Harris campaign had neglected in its get-out-the-vote-operation. And they could not let their bosses find out"

"Fueled by boxes of coffee in their impromptu boiler room, the small team of operatives crunched internal campaign data beneath purloined Harris-Walz signs and directed dozens of volunteers across the city's core Democratic wards," reads the investigation. What they encountered was that many of the thousands of Black and Latino voters they talked to said they had never heard from the campaign.

"I was the first one knocking on these doors," said Amelia Pernell, a Harris campaign organizer involved in setting up the clandestine Dunkin' Donuts field office in North Philadelphia. "They hadn't talked to anybody. It was like: 'Hey, nobody has come to our neighborhood. The campaign doesn't care about us.'"

Harris underperformed in Philadelphia compared to President Biden's 2020 results, losing votes in Black and Latino neighborhoods while gaining support in wealthier, white precincts. Critics attributed this to a strategic focus on suburban white voters, which they said came at the expense of Black and Latino communities.