Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh where Pennsylvania Democrats are sounding alarm bells about the ability of the Harris-Walz campaign team.
PA Dems Sound Alarm Bells about Harris-Walz Campaign
Today, Emerson College released a poll showing that Trump was leading Harris by a margin of 49%-48% in Pennsylvania. The poll underscores concerns among Pennsylvania Democrats that the campaign is not doing enough to mobilize local groups and elected officials
Last week, veteran Pennsylvania reporter Holly Otterbein of POLITICO wrote a piece in which several top Democrats went on record criticizing the approach of the Harris campaign. From POLITICO:
“Philadelphia City Councilmember Kendra Brooks, a member of the Working Families Party who has endorsed Harris, said “there’s been a lot of struggles” on the in-state Harris campaign, which she attributed to “folks coming into Philadelphia that are making assumptions about what needs to happen in Philadelphia and not necessarily having the relationships to move Philadelphia politics.”
Harris’ coordinated campaign’s former Latino coalition manager in Pennsylvania, Mariel Joy Kornblith Martin, left after two weeks on the job and wrote a blistering memo to state party leaders in August saying that she was provided with “no access to necessary data on Latino demographics” and “no infrastructure to plan events or engage the Latino community.”
“Please give us the tools to win,” wrote Martin in the memo, which was obtained by POLITICO, “for as we all know, you do not win PA without Latinos, and you do not win the presidency without PA.””
Press Access Very Restrictive in PA
At a time when the Harris-Walz campaign is struggling in Pennsylvania, their overly restrictive press policy may be hurting them. Payday Report has found ourselves extremely frustrated about press access at Harris-Walz campaign events.
Last week, Payday attended a public event featuring Jodi Balfour, an actress on the hit show Ted Lasso. While the event was publicly advertised and promoted, when Payday arrived to film it, we were told that the press was not allowed to film a Hollywood star.
This past weekend, Payday filmed a canvass kick off featuring Senator Bob Casey and Georgia political leader Stacy Abrams. The rally featured several campaigns and one of the campaigns told us that it would be fine if we went out to capture scenes of people going door-to-door.
A volunteer offered to let us film him going door-to-door, but when we attempted to leave with him to film, we were blocked by Harris-Walz staffers, who wouldn’t let us film it.
At a time, when the Harris campaign is struggling to take a lead, it makes no sense that sympathetic reporters are being blocked from filming things that previous campaigns had always allowed us.
Payday Report calls on the Harris-Walz campaign to open it up to the press.
Help Cover Social Movements in Western PA in Closing Campaigns
Rather than focus directly on covering the campaign, Payday has decided to pivot to focus on covering social movements and other groups taking their own independent political actions.
Donate to help us cover the closing days of the campaign. Please, if you can, sign up as one of our 774 recurring donors today
Poll: UAW Members Prefer Harris by 22% over Trump
Given the Biden-Harris Administration’s support for the UAW’s “Stand Up Strike” against the Big Three, they have remained popular among the rank-and-file of the UAW. A new poll by the UAW shows that Harris leads by 22% among UAW members in key battleground states.
“Among members who reported hearing from the UAW about the presidential election, Harris’ lead over Trump grows to 29 points,” the UAW said in a release. “These numbers highlight the effectiveness of the union’s aggressive strategy to inform members about the candidates’ positions”.
For more, check out the UAW’s polling release.
Union Documentary Has Received Praise, But No Major Distributor
Finally, the documentary Union, about the efforts to unionize at Amazon, received widespread praise at Sundance. However, the film couldn’t get a major distributor. The Hollywood Reporter has a look at why:
“Story began to receive calls from acquaintances saying a film should be made about the effort, after her team had already been on the ground with the union, filming the entire saga, for about a year. “At that point there was some idea that, yeah, this film is going to find a home. This is a big news story. It’s all over the New York Times,” she says.
But that vibe shifted again over one and a half years later, before the film’s Sundance premiere. As major companies were belt-tightening in the wake of the industry’s 2023 double strikes, a couple of big streamers, Story says, communicated that they were pivoting away from political and social-issue documentaries toward storylines like “brands gone bad.” At the festival the filmmakers began to hear a dual response: That executives loved the film but that their employers probably wouldn’t take it on. Story adds, “A couple of distributors said, really honestly, ‘We have a working relationship to Amazon Studios and we cannot risk that arrangement.’” (The biggest documentary sales titles out of the festival ended up being the celebrity bio Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story to Warner Bros. Discovery and buddy road movie Will & Harper to Netflix, both in eight-figure deals.)
By early spring, as it became clear that no major North American or worldwide rights deals were on the table, the group began seriously looking into self-distribution. The filmmakers had already retained the impact production company Red Owl Partners and began working with distribution expert Michael Tuckman in April. They started creating an individualized distribution plan “that would be squarely in line with our values,” Maing says. The thought was, “At the very least, we’re not going to commercialize this and turn it into generic content.””
For more, check out The Hollywood Reporter.
News & Links Elsewhere
- Bay Area teachers go on strike in wealthiest ZIP code in US
- Washington teen loses legs at school-based work program
- Asheville restaurateurs prepare for a potential ‘mass exodus’ of food service workers
- Ohio workers stepping up efforts to unionize in recent years
- Dutch pharmacy workers planning national strike on Nov. 12 over wage increase
- Biden Administration has recovered more than $1 billion for workers in wages stolen by employers.
- Finally., the Washington Post has a look at what happens if the NYT’s tech staff strikes on election night
Alright folks, that’s all for today. Keep sending tips, story ideas, comments and complaints to melk@paydayreport.com
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Love & Solidarity,
Melk
