CHICAGO — Angie Gialloreto of Pennsylvania attended her first Democratic National Convention in 1976, when Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were on the ticket, and has been to every DNC since. And at 95, she’s believed to be the oldest of the thousands of Democratic delegates, stumping for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid this week with no plans to slow down, she told the Capital-Star in an interview Tuesday.
“I am a Democrat, and I started when I was very young,” said Gialloreto, who said she has been a committee woman in Wilkins Township for 66 years. This year’s election, she said, feels different than many past years. “It’s a new generation, women and people of color are finally not being overlooked and bypassed. It’s a beginning of a new American freedom.”
Gialloreto, who was a delegate for Hillary Clinton in 2016, said Clinton’s Monday night speech was moving. “She should have been president,” Gialloreto said. “But she’s like me, a true Democrat. And I’m so proud of the leadership of my state and this country.”
She advised younger delegates and younger women not to give up the fight, even on days when they are feeling discouraged, and to get involved in politics.
“Some days it fills your heart so much that you can’t explain to people; the enthusiasm that you get,” she said. “But if they feel they have something to contribute to their community it’s worth it. Come try it, you’ll like it.”
She couldn’t choose a favorite convention. But she said President Joe Biden is her favorite Democrat. “I first met him when he was just running as a senator, and I had a feeling about him,” she said.
The youngest Pennsylvania delegate, and one of the youngest at the DNC, is Ellie Goluboff-Schragger, 20, a rising junior at the University of Pennsylvania. “I wanted to see how all this works on a national level and meet all the people that make all of this happen,” she said.
Goluboff-Schragger said she met Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday and was impressed. “He was so kind, and so amazing,” she said. She also wants to meet Vice President Kamala Harris, of course, but also U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), whom Goluboff-Schragger said really resonates with younger voters.
She’s listening this week to how Democrats speak on the issues most important to her and her peers. “As a woman, obviously reproductive rights are important; as a gay woman, I think LGBTQ rights are really important,” she said. “The right for me to get married is really important to me, and the right to choose what I do with my body and be able to have a kid without being worried about, you know, what we heard at the convention last night happening.”
She referred to a group of women who told their stories of having difficulty accessing abortion care during Monday night’s start of the convention. “Kamala Harris has been an incredible advocate for abortion rights and reproductive rights, and Tim Walz has been an advocate for LGBTQ rights, since the very beginning. So I think those are the things that matter most.”
For Gialloreto, she’s planning to treat the upcoming election the same as she has all past elections: as a call to get to work. “I believe in freedom. I believe in America,” she said. “I’m just a happy 95-year-old woman that’s going to work my head off to get Kamala elected.”
