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.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was expected to appear in court Tuesday to defend his effort to get on the ballot for president in the premier battleground state of Pennsylvania, where Democrats are angling to force him off in what is expected to be a closely contested race.

Democratic Party-aligned challengers say Kennedy’s candidacy paperwork states a false home address — an allegation being aired in other state courts — and contains other damning shortcomings, such as the wrong names of people who supposedly attested that they gathered the signatures of thousands of voters.

Kennedy’s campaign has dismissed the legal challenge as “frivolous.”

Should Kennedy appear on Pennsylvania’s ballot, he could siphon critical support from Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in a state where a margin of tens of thousands of votes delivered victory to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2016.

Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes — tied with Illinois for fifth most — is of such importance that Harris visited the state Sunday and Trump visited both Saturday and Monday.

“They say that if you win Pennsylvania, you’re going to win the whole thing,” Trump told a crowd in Wilkes-Barre’s Mohegan Arena on Saturday.

National Democrats in particular have been active in trying to undercut the candidacy of Kennedy, a scion of one of the party’s most famous families. Trump has alternated between bashing Kennedy as liberal or courting his endorsement.

Kennedy meanwhile is fighting challenges in several other states, including Georgia, and is appealing a judge’s decision in New York last week that rejected Kennedy’s nominating petitions because his listed residence was a “sham” address. Kennedy lists his address as New York, but the judge ruled in favor of the challengers, who argued Kennedy’s actual residence was the home in Los Angeles he shares with his wife, the actor Cheryl Hines.

Kennedy’s campaign otherwise says it has collected enough signatures for ballot access in all 50 states and that it is officially on the ballot in 22 states, including the battlegrounds of Michigan and North Carolina.

In Pennsylvania, the Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian Party’s Chase Oliver submitted petitions to get on Pennsylvania’s presidential ballot without being challenged.

Two other court challenges were ongoing. A Democratic-aligned court challenge was targeting the nominating papers for the Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidate Claudia De la Cruz while a Republican-aligned challenge was targeting the Constitution Party presidential candidate James Clymer.

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Follow Marc Levy at https://x.com/timelywriter.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) has received financial support from a group lobbying to expand a visa program known to benefit Chinese nationals seeking entry into the United States, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Casey accepted a June 24 $5,000 donation from the Immigrant Investors Association/Invest in the USA PAC, which seeks to increase the number of available visas through America’s EB-5 immigrant-investor regional-center program.

Casey is the only 2024 Senate candidate to have accepted a campaign contribution from IIUSA PAC, per FEC filings.

EB-5 visas offer permanent American residency to foreigners who invest in “qualified job-creating projects,” the Wall Street Journal reported last year.

The program has led to “greater interest from wealthy Chinese seeking a way out of their country” as their economy struggles and their government grows more authoritarian, the WSJ noted.

Chinese citizens have historically constituted the largest nationality of those seeking visas through the EB-5 program.

Mainland Chinese nationals scored 6,125 out of the total 10,855 in fiscal year 2022. Hong Kong got another 142.

The State Department announced Friday it had reached the limit of EB-5 visas it could grant in fiscal year 2024. Dependents of lucky investors are also given residence.

Documents from Commonwealth Strategic Partners — a DC bipartisan lobbying firm — show Casey was at a June fundraiser hosted by one IIUSA PAC lobbyist and attended by another.

Both of the lobbyists, Commonwealth managing partners Keith Pemrick and George McElwee, have been involved extensively with EB-5 issues.

The revelation comes just days after The Post reported Casey has a three-cent stake in Chinese fentanyl manufacturer Yichang Humanwell through an index fund that’s part of a 529 Plan mutual fund for his family. He does not exercise direct control over the investment.

Casey’s opponent, GOP Senate hopeful Dave McCormick, blasted the incumbent as “the ultimate liar and hypocrite” for running ads about the Humanwell investments of McCormick’s former company while having a stake in it himself.

Connecticut-based hedge fund Bridgewater Associates — which McCormick led from 2020 to 2022 —  had a $1.7 million stake in Humanwell as of 2021.