Kamala Harris and Tim Walz tour Western Pennsylvania one day before the DNC begins

Air Force Two arrived at the Pittsburgh International Airport Sunday as heavy rain began to fall. Vice President Kamala Harris exited the plane minutes later, after the clouds cleared away, to the cheers of Democratic voters who had waited two hours to welcome her, and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, to the city.

The stop marked the beginning of a whirlwind tour of Western Pennsylvania one day before the start of the Democratic National Convention Monday in Chicago.

Harris and Walz drummed up enthusiasm among the party’s base, taking photos with attendees before stepping onto bright blue buses emblazoned with their names and traveling to nearby Beaver County where volunteers in the red county were preparing to knock on doors on behalf of the campaign.

“This campaign will be won in rooms just like this all across the country,” Walz told the volunteers.

The visit is the first in a tour of swing states the campaign has planned for the week of the DNC. But the decision to start in Western Pennsylvania underscores the importance of the region, especially Pittsburgh and its suburbs, to the Democratic Party, which won the state in 2020 in part thanks to a strong turnout in Allegheny County.

The region also holds strategic and symbolic importance to former President Donald Trump. It is home to working-class voters whose support he needs in order to win the state, and it took on extra significance when Trump held his final rally before the Republican National Convention in Butler County and survived an assassination attempt. Many in Trump’s base looked to the shooting as evidence of divine intervention for Trump to survive and win reelection. He has said he plans to return to the county for a second rally.

In addition to shrinking Trump’s winning margins in the red counties surrounding Pittsburgh, dominating in the city and its suburbs will be key for Democrats.

“If they’re not turning out votes here, they can’t win Pennsylvania, and if they can’t win Pennsylvania, you can’t win the country,” said Eric Stern, a Democratic strategist in Western Pennsylvania who worked on Sen. John Fetterman’s 2022 campaign.

Speaking to volunteers in Beaver County, which Trump carried by 17 points in 2020, Harris and Walz focused less on policy and more on unity. Harris sought to draw a contrast between her message and that of Trump without ever mentioning her opponent’s name.

“This campaign is about the recognition that, frankly, over the last several years, there’s been this kind of perversion that has taken place which is to suggest that the measure of a leader is based on who you beat down,” Harris said. “What we know is that the real and true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”

Though Harris is unlikely to win Beaver County, Tina Aquino, a committeewoman in the county, said she saw opportunity to limit Trump’s gains. Before Biden left the race, Aquino said, she was one of only a couple volunteers knocking on doors. Now, there are dozens.

“I haven’t seen this much enthusiasm since Obama,” she said.

Biden decisively won Pittsburgh in 2020, and carried the surrounding towns by smaller margins. And two years later, Fetterman outperformed Biden as Allegheny County cast 67,000 more total votes than Philadelphia County despite having 133,000 fewer voters, likely a testament to the former Braddock mayor’s appeal to working- and middle-class voters and a uniquely strong midterm election for Democrats in Pennsylvania.

At the DNC in Chicago, Democratic Party leaders are expected to make appeals to these voters. Day One of the DNC will be focused on framing Harris and Walz as “fighting on behalf of everyday Americans.” But it’s unclear yet whether Harris, a Black and South Asian prosecutor from California, will be able to draw the same support among white working-class voters in Western Pennsylvania that Fetterman enjoyed. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll that shows Harris narrowly leading Trump in a head-to-head matchup, she still lags in support from white voters without a college degree. The poll also found that the economy and inflation remain the two most important issues to voters, and that voters trust Trump more on those issues.

Still, voters greeting Harris at the airport, many of them union members, showed an enthusiasm absent in the six visits Harris made to Pennsylvania as President Joe Biden’s vice president and running mate in the last year.

Many in attendance cited appreciation for Harris’ policies on women’s reproductive rights and the economy.

Greg Bernarding, business manager for the Pittsburgh Regional Building and Construction Trades Council, said he was hopeful Harris and Walz would continue to expand upon Pennsylvania’s energy industry and build on the work of Biden’s administration.

“Since Biden has been in there he’s done more for the working men and women of building and trades than any president ever has done,” he said.

Union members represent a working-class voting bloc that both campaigns are eager to secure.

In a statement Sunday, a spokesperson for Trump attacked Harris for not holding a news conference or sitting for an interview since becoming the Democratic nominee and argued she should answer for the Biden administration’s record on inflation and the border.

“And while Kamala hasn’t been and won’t be answering unscripted questions any time soon, Pennsylvanians know better than to buy her lies, spin, and gaslighting anyway,” Kush Desai, a spokesperson for the campaign said.

The Trump campaign has indicated plans to leverage Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, to speak to those same voters in Western Pennsylvania. The Ohio senator is expected to spend much of his time in Pennsylvania this cycle in the hopes his working-class roots will appeal to voters in the region. Last week, Vance stopped in Westmoreland County just outside Pittsburgh.

Harris supporters brushed off the idea that Vance, who launched his political career after authoring a memoir about growing up in a working-class family in Ohio, would be effective among Pennsylvania voters.

And Natalya Rodriguez, vice president of the Service Employees International Union chapter at Allegheny General Hospital, said Vance may speak to some Pennsylvanians. But she said the Trump campaign’s tax proposals would damage the campaign’s ability to appeal to working-class voters.

“I understand that changes need to be made but the laborers you want to fight for, you’re going to destroy their way of life,” Rodriguez said of Trump’s platform.

Both campaigns are keenly aware of the importance Pennsylvania will play to the whole nation.

“They say that if you win Pennsylvania, you’re going to win the whole thing,” Trump said in a rally in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday. “We can’t let these people win Pennsylvania.”

In a meandering speech Saturday, Trump hit Harris for a position against fracking in her 2019 presidential campaign, falsely claimed polls had him ahead in Pennsylvania, and argued Harris snubbed Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in favor of Walz for her VP “because he’s Jewish.”

Trump will return to Pennsylvania Monday to speak to the media in York County. The same day, Vance will visit Philadelphia.