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One final pitch to Pennsylvania voters

Posted on by Kennedy
One final pitch to Pennsylvania voters

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PHILADELPHIA – When Kamala Harris wraps up her campaign with a campaign rally at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday, she will be making more than just a cultural nod to her fight against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The boxing film “Rocky” made the museum a landmark. But for Harris' campaign, his location is symbolic of a sharp argument the vice president has made about the fragility of American democracy.

“To do it on Ben Franklin Parkway, in the city that founded our democracy, for an election where we're fighting to save it, I think just says a lot,” said Brendan McPhillips, senior adviser to Harris in Pennsylvania, in an interview.

Harris spoke last week from the Ellipse in Washington, DC, where then-President Trump addressed his supporters on January 6, 2021, shortly before they stormed the US Capitol. She said Trump, who has refused to concede his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden and mused over the weekend that he should not have left the White House, will spend a second term stewing over grievances .

The candidates were in a dead heat in polls before the final election day, when more than 80 million votes had already been cast.

Harris started her morning in Detroit, following a series of rallies in Michigan the previous day. She had four scheduled stops in Pennsylvania before the evening concert in Philadelphia, where she will make her final pitch to voters. The list for their latest rally includes Ricky Martin, Fat Joe, Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga.

The vice president's campaign said in a call with reporters Monday that it expects multiple paths to winning the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency, highlighting Harris' recent campaign activity in battleground states.

“We're spending the resources, building the organization, maximizing our advertising and our programming and going to each of these battleground states in the Blue Wall and the Sun Belt because we see them all as viable for us,” Harris campaign coordinator – said Chairwoman Jen O'Malley Dillon on a call with reporters.

But the fact that Harris is wrapping up her whirlwind presidential bid in Pennsylvania is a tacit admission that the state, part of the blue wall Democrats have touted, is crucial to her ability to win the White House.

“It says what everyone already knew, which is that Pennsylvania is the key to winning the election on Tuesday,” said Trump-backed Republican strategist Charlie Gerow. “And most people believe, as I think is right, that the way Pennsylvania is doing is going to happen to the nation.”

The fight for 19 electoral votes

Harris and Trump have each emphasized the importance of Pennsylvania. Trump told his supporters at a rally in Allentown last week that he believes the state, which has 19 electoral votes, will decide the outcome of the election.

“It's in your hands. If we win Pennsylvania, we will win the entire deal,” the Republican presidential candidate said.

Trump won Pennsylvania by about 44,000 votes en route to the presidency in 2016. Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes in 2020 and also won the White House.

Four years ago, Biden was wrapping up his campaign in Pittsburgh at the same time Harris was holding a drive-in rally in Philadelphia, where black voters make up a significant portion of the population. The 2020 candidates won both cities as well as Erie in the northwest; Harrisburg, in the middle; and the Lehigh Valley in the northeastern part of the state.

On a trip to Philadelphia in late October, Harris identified Pennsylvania as a pivotal point for her campaign. “Pennsylvania will be key. No doubt,” she told reporters.

On Monday afternoon, Harris attended a campaign rally in Scranton and then visited the majority-Hispanic city of Allentown for the campaign's first time. She also plans to stop by a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

To cap off her final day of the 2024 campaign, Harris will speak to her supporters in Pittsburgh at a rally and concert with Katy Perry and Andra Day before her nightly rally in Philadelphia.

Harris is using the 2022 election plan

The vice president is following a plan drawn up by Democrats who have won elections in the state over the past four years, including U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, who campaigned for Harris in rural parts of the state.

Trump won big victories in many of these counties in the last presidential election, even as Democrats running statewide managed to minimize the vote counts of their Republican opponents.

Fetterman campaigned with former President Bill Clinton over the weekend in Butler County, near Pittsburgh, and Erie County, which the senator called the “ultimate bellwether” in the state, if not the country. He spent Sunday in Beaver County, another Trump-won county outside Pittsburgh that Harris visited weeks into her campaign.

In a phone call from the road, Fetterman stressed the importance of campaigning beyond Philadelphia and the urban core of Pittsburgh into the redder parts of the state.

“They are the ones blocking the margins,” Fetterman said. “It’s never about giving a county the color on the map.”

Harris initially prioritized Pittsburgh and surrounding counties before focusing on Philadelphia and its suburbs in the final weeks of the race.

More recently, she has focused on districts where the campaign believes it can turn out suburban women and anti-Trump Republicans. She has visited Philadelphia counties and targeted cities that have traditionally voted Democratic, such as Harrisburg.

Former Trump 2024 primary opponent Nikki Haley won about one in five GOP voters in those areas, even though she was no longer running for president by the time Republicans went to the polls in Pennsylvania.

Gerow, who lives in the Democratic stronghold of Harrisburg, rejected the strategy.

“Nikki Haley has made it very, very, very, very clear that she is 100 percent for Donald Trump, and her supporters are not going to say, 'Well, we don't like Trump so we like Harris,'” he said. “They just won’t do that. I mean, Kamala Harris is the most left-wing candidate to ever run for a major party nomination.”

Harris' campaign says it is pursuing a strategy that includes communicating with voters in the more conservative parts of the state.

“It was a really important part of our campaign that we go everywhere, talk to everyone and have a very authentic and serious interaction with people,” said McPhillips, Fetterman's campaign manager.

Making a play for Allentown

Harris' late game visit to Allentown on Monday was an example of how the candidate couldn't be everywhere, even in a shortened campaign. Her stop in the city she and Biden won four years ago came after Trump's visit and an offensive joke about Puerto Rico from an insult comic at the Republican candidate's rally at Madison Square Garden. Allentown has a large Puerto Rican population.

“She's there, and it shows the commitment she's made throughout the campaign that she's going to fight for every last vote,” Fetterman said of Harris' campaign rallies across the state.

The second Mr. Doug Emhoff was in Lancaster and Altoona on Saturday while his wife campaigned in other battleground states.

Biden also campaigned Saturday in Pennsylvania, at his childhood home of Scranton, and former first lady Michelle Obama held a rally in Philadelphia. First lady Jill Biden campaigned in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Harrisburg on Sunday.

Harris traveled to Arizona and Nevada late last week, spent Friday in Wisconsin, traveled through Georgia and North Carolina on Saturday and campaigned in Michigan on Sunday before arriving in Pennsylvania on Monday. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, made several stops in Wisconsin. He will end his night in Detroit.

Trump stopped in Reading earlier in the day and is wrapping up his campaign with stops in Pittsburgh and a final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, is ending the 2024 campaign with stops in four different swing states; Newtown, Pa.; Flint, Mich.; La Crosse, Wis.; and Atlanta.

The Republican team had surrogates in Pennsylvania throughout the day Monday, including Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker.

Joey Garrison contributed to this report.

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