By Patrick Reilly | New York Post
This is no joking matter
Vice President Kamala Harris has decided to dodge former president Trump and skip this year’s Al Smith Dinner — a major election year event that generations of candidates have attended — becoming the first presidential hopeful to duck out since failed presidential wannabe Walter Mondale in 1984.
While Trump has agreed to go to the 79th iteration of the Archdiocese of New York’s dinner on Oct. 17, Harris’s camp says she will instead campaign in key battleground states on the final stretch before election day, her campaign told The Post.
It has been a tradition for both presidential candidates to attend the dinner — at which the contenders take turns giving speeches roasting each other — since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy appeared together in 1960.
Archdiocese spokesperson Joseph Zwilling told The Post they learned that Harris would not be there on Saturday.
