Democrats are stepping up their outreach to Polish Americans in this year's presidential election as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump vie for support from a community that could play a decisive role in razor-thin battleground state contests.
Harris hopes to capitalize on Polish Americans' historic animosity toward Russia and on Trump's hesitancy to back Ukraine during last week's debate. The Democratic vice president's team organized a national call with Polish American supporters on Wednesday to encourage local networks to hold their own events and spread the campaign's message.
Although Polish Americans are not a particularly large demographic, many of them live in the so-called "blue wall" states that are critical to victory for either candidate. There are an estimated 784,000 in Michigan, 758,000 in Pennsylvania and 481,000 in Wisconsin, three places that Harris is visiting this week.
"We're talking about an election where a swing of a few thousand voters in any of those states could make all the difference," said Tom Malinowski, a Polish-born former Democratic congressman from New Jersey.
Filip Jotevski, the newly hired point person for networking with diaspora and ethnic communities, said on Wednesday's Harris organizing call that if Trump returns to power "he'll sell out Ukraine" after spending years "cozying up to Vladimir Putin." Trump, for his part, is slated to visit a Polish American shrine in Pennsylvania on Sunday for the unveiling of a monument to the anti-communist Solidarity movement. The Republican candidate will be there at the same time as Polish President Andrzej Duda.
