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Kamala Harris hosts Martha’s Vineyard ‘grassroots’ fundraiser as costs force workers, Natives to flee

Vice President Kamala Harris greeted supporters on Martha’s Vineyard Saturday on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign.

Her arrival at the idyllic, high-priced Massachusetts resort was touted as a “grassroots fundraiser.”

However, access to the VP, on an island in which 75% of voters pulled a lever for the Democrat ticket in 2020, cost as much as $10,000.

“I guarantee you not one working-class Democrat (was) invited to the Kamala event,” long-time Martha’s Vineyard homeowner, high-profile attorney and longtime Democrat supporter Alan Dershowitz told Fox News Digital.

The big-ticket appearance underscored growing concerns, according to many long-time island residents, on an island overrun in recent years by powerful leftist elites who rule Washington DC, and shape pop culture.

Martha’s Vineyard as a result, they say, is now unaffordable for the average person, increasingly hostile to both working-class residents and its Native Wampanoag population, and ruthlessly intolerant of opinions that run counter to hard-woke Democrat talking points.

“Martha’s Vineyard has been socially engineered for the elite of the Democrat National Party,” Jim Powell, a longtime Martha’s Vineyard teacher and union rep, told Fox News Digital.

Former President Obama and Michelle Obama purchased a $12 million estate on the island in 2019 after vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard several times while in the White House.

Robert Soros, son of billionaire Democrat donor George Soros, owned property on Martha’s Vineyard for years before selling it in 2020 following his divorce.

The Soros and Obama families are known to have a cozy relationship. Members of the Soros family had frequent access to the White House when Obama was in office.

Former President Clinton made Martha’s Vineyard a summer retreat four times while president.

The vice president’s sister, Maya Lakshmi Harris, owns a home in Edgartown and has hosted fundraisers there, according to local sources.

A long list of Democrat heavyweights have visited, vacationed or owned property on Martha’s Vineyard in recent years.

The vice president’s sister, Maya Lakshmi Harris, owns a home in Edgartown and has hosted fundraisers there, according to local sources.

The average home sale price on the island was $2.1 million in the first half of 2023, according to market data from local realtor Tea Lane Associates.

“Working people and young people have been forced to move off island,” said Powell, who is also a former local and state official and host and producer of “The Jim Powell Report” on Martha’s Vineyard Community Television. “People just can’t afford to live there. The price of food. The price of gas. People here call getting by each day ‘the grind.’”

He said Martha’s Vineyard has become a “tax shelter” for Democrat leaders.

The wealthy and powerful are enchanted by the largely rural island’s tranquil pace, stunning waterfront properties and one of the nation’s most favorable local tax environments.

The fiscal year 2022 tax rate in Edgartown was just 0.3%, according to local data. The tax rate in Chilmark is just 0.28%.

So wealthy Chilmark homeowners pay just $2,820 on each $1 million in assessed value. Each rate is among the lowest in the United States.

The island’s six municipalities have few social services, tiny police and fire departments, and small school systems. They share one high school.

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