Harris and Walz embark on a bus tour in Pennsylvania before the DNC

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz embarked on a bus tour of southwestern Pennsylvania on Sunday, hoping to spark a wave of enthusiasm for her candidacy their party’s nominating convention this week in Chicago.

Vice President Harris and Minnesota Governor Walz were joined by their spouses, Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, as they made their first stop visiting local volunteers who were calling a campaign office in Beaver County’s Rochester neighborhood. Donald Trumpthe Republican presidential candidate, won the county in 2020. But Democrats are riding on renewed enthusiasm after President Joe Biden died exactly four weeks ago dropped his re-election bid and endorsed Harris to replace him on the ticket.

As Harris spoke to a group of supporters and volunteers outside the campaign office, he spoke of strength and leadership. She appeared to make a veiled reference to Trump, who is known for his boxing style and projection of a strongman image, when she said that the “real and true measure of a leader’s strength is based on who you elevate.” instead of who they knocked down.

“Anyone who wants to beat up other people is a coward,” she shouted, to cheers and applause. “This is what strength looks like.”

Walz seemed to take on the role of his former job coaching high school football in his remarks, telling the volunteers, “Let’s leave it all on the field. Let’s finish this thing.’

Southwestern Pennsylvania is a crucial part of a key state that has long attracted the attention of presidential candidates. The state voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Both Harris and Trump are competing to see who can put Pennsylvania in their column on November 5.

Most polls, including from the New York Times/Siena College And Fox Newssee Harris and Trump locked in a tight race statewide.

Trump held a rally in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday in the northeastern part of the state, following his previous July rallies in Harrisburg and Butler, where he survived an assassination attempt.

The bus tour marks Harris’ eighth trip to Pennsylvania this year, and her second this month. The vice president chose to make her first joint performance with Walz on the ticket in Philadelphia on August 6.

They arrived early Sunday with their spouses at Pittsburgh International Airport and greeted supporters. The foursome held hands and raised their arms together before cheering on supporters holding campaign signs.

They then boarded a bright blue bus emblazoned with “Harris Walz” in large white letters as they headed to the Pittsburgh area to delight voters.

In Rochester, Harris, Walz and their spouses sat down with volunteers for a few minutes and made phone calls to arrange support.

“79 days left, Hannah,” Harris said as he spoke on the phone.

At another point while on the phone, she said, “We’re all in this together.”

Walz hung up, told the caller, “He’s all in,” and gave him a thumbs up. He called again and asked the person on the line, ‘How are you feeling? What are you hearing from people?”

Kristin Kanthak, an associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, said Pennsylvania is “a state that has traditionally been super important, but southwestern Pennsylvania has actually been kind of a battleground state battleground.”

Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, is a diverse county with urban, suburban and rural areas, and many people there have not yet decided how to vote, she said.

“It makes sense to come here and ask for votes because there are votes here for the taking,” Kanthak said of Harris. “It’s not just about developing your base. It’s about having the opportunity to speak to truly undecided voters.”

In the 2020 race, Biden won Allegheny County with 60% of the vote, while Trump won neighboring Beaver County, which includes Rochester, with about 58% of the vote.

After Trump’s surprise victory in the state in 2016, Biden flipped Pennsylvania in 2020 — winning the White House — in part by boosting his vote totals in heavily Democratic Pittsburgh, the state’s second-largest city and the provincial capital. of Allegheny County.

Biden diligently courted the area’s workers’ unions, kicking off his 2020 presidential campaign at a Teamsters hall in Pittsburgh by declaring, “I’m a union man.” As president, he opposed the takeover of Pittsburgh’s legendary US Steel by a Japanese company, saying it should “remain completely American” and imposed higher tariffs on Chinese steel.

Trump, who is counting on a strong turnout from his base of white working-class voters, is not conceding this area. The counties surrounding Pittsburgh shifted from Democrats to Republicans in the recent presidential elections, showing well for Trump in both previous efforts.

Trump has also embraced protectionist trade policies and insists he is pro-labor. His vow to increase U.S. energy production and the “drill, baby, drill” principle has resonated in blue-collar counties in southwestern Pennsylvania like Washington, where the natural gas drilling boom has helped make Pennsylvania the second largest producer of energy after Texas the country has become. Harris once wanted to ban fracking, a process for extracting oil and gas, before recently renouncing her previous position.

Dana Brown, director of Chatham University’s Pennsylvania Center for Women & Politics, said in an interview that Harris will use the bus trip to increase local media attention and reach voters in the southwestern region of the state “while they are still always a lot of momentum at her back.

“She’s going to get a lot of that free media attention,” Brown said. “I believe their hope … is to keep that momentum going and focus on her and less on her opponent.”

Bus tours have become a staple of political campaigns, in part because of the free media attention they generate. Such trips get candidates out of their power suits and out of Washington, so they can travel the country and score face time with voters in small venues like diners and mom-and-pop shops.

Biden rolled through Iowa on a eight-day bus trip he mentioned “No Malarkey” in December 2019.

During his 2012 re-election campaign, President Barack Obama toured small-town Ohio on his “Betting on America” bus tour.

“It’s always nice just to get out of Washington, and for me it’s great to be able to communicate with people,” Obama said after one stop.

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also traveled by bus as they campaigned for a second term.

The Democratic National Convention opens on Monday.

Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.