Rochester, Pa. (AP) – Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and running companion Tim Walls On Sunday, Pep gave speeches to campaign volunteers and a high school football team, their bus ride to a corner of Pennsylvania serving as a modest, small-town version of the grand rally he had hoped for. At the Democratic Nominating Convention This week in Chicago.
Vice President Harris and Minnesota Governor Walls, joined by their wives Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walls, visited another firehouse and high school when they stopped to visit volunteers at a campaign office not far from Pittsburgh. city. The tour on a bright blue bus emblazoned with the names of the candidates and the phrase “A New Way Forward” also included pilgrimages to a convenience store and a restaurant known for its towering sandwiches.
Haris told reporters that although he is currently running for the vice-presidential post, he has a level to make up for in the race against the former president. Donald TrumpRepublican presidential candidate.
“I consider us very underdogs,” Harris said during a stop in Moon Township. “We have a lot of work to do to get the votes of the American people. That’s why we’re on this bus tour today, we’re going to travel this country like we traveled this country, talking to people, listening to everyone, and getting their votes for the next 79 days.
Southwestern Pennsylvania is an important part of a key battleground state that has long attracted the attention of presidential candidates. Voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Both Harris and Trump are competing over who can put Pennsylvania in their column on November 5.
Trump, hoping for strong votes from his base of white, working-class voters, has not conceded that area. Districts around Pittsburgh have swung from Democratic to Republican, with Trump winning both of his previous runs in the recent presidential election.
In a demonstration of the region’s contested politics, Harris’ bus and motorcade twice on Sunday rolled past groups of Trump supporters with signs and banners bearing his name.
At his last stop, the vice president answered a few questions from reporters, saying Trump is afraid to speak to reporters and has tended to hold his own news conferences in recent weeks.
Throughout their tour on Sunday, Harris and Walls steered clear of policy or politics, instead sticking to broad-stroke messages focused on character, perseverance and the country’s future.
Harris spoke to a group of supporters and volunteers outside a campaign office in downtown Rochester about strength and leadership. When he said, “The real and true measure of a leader’s strength is based on who you elevate,” he was making a veiled reference to Trump, known for his pugalistic style and projection of a formidable figure. Who did they beat?
“He who beats others is a coward,” she shouted, drawing cheers and applause. “This is what strength looks like.”
Walls appeared to accept the role of his former job coaching high school football and told the volunteers: “Let’s leave it all on the field. Let’s get this thing done.”
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The deputy chief next stopped at a firehouse in Aliquippa, where he met firefighters, petted the station’s dog and gave the crew almond pastries, before heading to a nearby high school where he and Walls met the local football coach and addressed the team. He knelt on the ground to listen.
Walls got back into coach mode, reminiscing a bit about his days leading a team before introducing Harris. He praised the young athletes for their leadership: “Our nation believes in you and your excellence. We appreciate your ambition.
“Welcome to the prototype club,” he told them.
Most polls including recent polls New York Times/Siena College And Fox NewsFind out Harris and Trump are in a tight race across the state.
Trump held a rally in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday In the northeastern part of the state, following his earlier rallies in Harrisburg and Butler in July, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
The bus trip was Harris’ eighth trip to Pennsylvania, and his second this month. The Vice President chose to create her First joint appearance with Walls On the ticket in Philadelphia on August 6.
On Sunday, Harris and Walls arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport with their wives, where they held hands and raised their arms together in front of cheering supporters. The four then left in their bus to cheer with voters in the Pittsburgh area.
During a stop in Moon Township, Harris looked for Doritos at a Sheets convenience store. He then stopped at Primandi Brothers restaurant, a popular chain known for sandwiches piled high with coleslaw and fries, where he met diners and posed for a few pictures. Both franchises started in western Pennsylvania.
Earlier in the day in Rochester, Harris, Walls and their spouses spent a few minutes sitting at tables with volunteers and making phone calls to offer support.
Harris took the cell phone from a volunteer and spoke to the person on the other end.
“I love Erie. At some point we’ll be back in Erie,” Harris said.
She continued the conversation and at one point said, “It’s been 79 days.”
Sitting across Harris’ desk, Walls hung up and gave the caller a thumbs up, saying, “He’s all there.”
Christine Kantak, an associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, said Pennsylvania “has traditionally been a very important state, but Southwestern Pennsylvania has really been a battleground part of the battleground state.”
After Trump’s surprise victory in the state in 2016, Biden flipped Pennsylvania in 2020 — and won the White House — in part, riding on his vote bulk in the state’s second-largest city, Democratic Pittsburgh.
Trump has embraced protectionist trade policies and insists he is pro-labor. His vow to boost U.S. energy production and “drill, baby, drill” resonated in southwestern Pennsylvania blue-collar counties like Washington, where a natural gas drilling boom has helped make Pennsylvania the nation’s No. 2 producer behind Texas. Harris once wanted to ban the process of oil and gas extraction, before recently repudiating her previous stance — a reversal Trump has attacked her for.
Bus tours like the one Harris started in Pennsylvania have become a staple of political campaigns because of the free media coverage they generate. Such trips get candidates out of their power suits and out of Washington so they can travel the country and score face-to-face with voters in small venues like diners and mom-and-pop shops.
Harris’s low-key campaign on Sunday will be turned into the polar opposite on Monday when the Democratic National Convention begins in Chicago, providing a prime-time showcase for the director. Steven Spielberg has Helps to dance.
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Price announced from New York. Associated Press writers Michael Rubingham in northeastern Pennsylvania and Lynley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
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