At a rally last week for Democratic Senate candidate Katie McGinty, multiple attendees had no idea who she was, thinking instead they were coming out to see Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).
Supporters at the campaign event, which took place at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, consisted of many college students who backed Sanders in the Democratic primary when he was running for president. McGinty, who is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania against incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, was not the main attraction.
"Do you know anything about Katie McGinty?" a local reporter asked someone who appeared to be a college student.
"Not really. She running for Senate?" the student asked.
When McGinty spoke at the Democratic National Convention this summer in Philadelphia, many attendees were not interested in her candidacy either. Members of the Pennsylvania delegation were talking amongst themselves and not holding up her campaign signs, and national television channels did not cover what attending journalists described as her lackluster speech.