Polish Americans are not an ethnic group that typically gets mentioned in modern American presidential debates.
So when Vice President Kamala Harris noted Pennsylvania’s large Polish American population as she discussed the threat that Russia poses to Poland, Timothy L. Kuzma was pleasantly surprised.
“You start talking about Poland, and Polish Americans’ ears are going to perk up,’’ said Mr. Kuzma, national president of the Polish Falcons of America, a nonprofit fraternal benefit organization that provides life insurance for its members and is based in Pittsburgh.
In the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Polish Americans, who comprise more than 5 percent of the population, are an important, if politically overlooked, demographic.
Many of Pennsylvania’s roughly 700,000 Polish Americans share a common fear that Vladimir V. Putin has ambitions to restore the former Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, including in Poland.
But there is less agreement among them on whether Vice President Harris or Donald J. Trump would more effectively deal with Mr. Putin.
Dr. Barbara Zawadzki, a retired Pittsburgh physician whose parents escaped to the United States from communist Poland in 1960, said she feared that Mr. Trump would accede to Mr. Putin’s demands for Ukrainian territory.
“When one looks back at the foreign policy of his first term, he was only interested in Putin’s approval,’’ Dr. Zawadzki, 74, said of Mr. Trump. “That is why he wanted to decrease the importance of NATO. He was playing right into Putin’s hand.”
She supports Ms. Harris’s plan to continue backing Ukraine’s military effort to repel Russia, even as Mr. Trump has suggested that a deal could be brokered to avert more suffering.
“If Ukraine goes to Putin, it is the beginning of a domino effect,” Dr. Zawadzki added. “I think Poland could be the next domino, as could the Baltic countries.”
Polish immigrants arrived in Pennsylvania in large numbers in the late 19th century and early 20th century to work in the steel mills and coal mines in places like Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre. The state also attracted a smaller number of doctors and intellectuals from Poland, who came to work in hospitals and universities.
Two other battleground states, Wisconsin and Michigan, also have large Polish populations, and more generally, the nation’s ethnic Polish population is still concentrated in the Northeast and Upper Midwest.
In Pennsylvania, the 2020 presidential race was decided by 80,555 votes, so Polish voters could prove decisive if they were to line up largely behind Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris in this November’s election.
More than 30 Pennsylvania counties have a significant Polish population, though the highest concentration is in the northeastern part of the state, the heart of the anthracite coal mining region. In Luzerne County, home to Wilkes-Barre, one in six residents identify as Polish, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Ms. Harris plans a campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre on Friday.
As was typical of immigrant groups in the early 20th century, many Poles originally clustered in the same neighborhoods, often centered on Catholic churches. But today many of the state’s Polish Americans live spread out.
While this group may share an affinity for Poland, it is far from united politically on issues affecting the United States and many lean “heavily Republican,” said Oscar Swan, a professor emeritus of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Pittsburgh.
“I think it was a logical and ingratiating thing for Harris to say,” about Poland and Polish Americans during the debate, Professor Swan wrote in an email. “But it’s wishful thinking on her part, if she thinks she’s going to make inroads on this group.’’
Mr. Trump in 2020 won a majority of votes in eight of the 10 Pennsylvania neighborhoods with the highest concentration of Polish residents, a Times analysis found, though the margins were not large.
The Rev. Miroslaw Stelmaszczyk, a Catholic priest in Pittsburgh, is among the Polish Americans unmoved by Ms. Harris’s call-out during the debate.
Father Stelmaszczyk said he was “proud” when he heard the vice president mention his native Poland, where he has family members who worry about Russian aggression.
But he plans to vote for Mr. Trump, partly because of the Republican’s plan to clean up the immigration system in the United States.
“Immigration, immigration, immigration,” Father Stelmaszczyk said.
Mr. Kuzma, the president of the Polish Falcons, also serves as vice president of American Affairs at the Polish American Congress, an umbrella group that represents 10 million people of Polish descent and works to promote respect for Polish heritage and history as well as advocating the interests of Polish Americans and for Poland.
The organization has invited both the Harris and Trump campaigns to attend the group’s 80th anniversary celebration next month in Chicago but has yet to hear back from either.
“You can’t put a singular label on Polish American voters,” Mr. Kuzma said.
But one thing is for certain, he added: Politicians “don’t want the wrath of Polish Americans following you around.”
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