PITTSBURGH — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are sending their running mates into enemy territory to scrape up any voters they can find to swing Pennsylvania’s prized 19 electoral votes their way in the election’s final weeks.
Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance rallied in the Democratic stronghold of Pittsburgh Thursday, while Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz barnstormed in rural red Lawrence County Tuesday.
Though neither event seemed to attract voters from the opposing camp, attendees believe the candidates’ Rust Belt and rural identities could make up for weakness at the top of the tickets in western Pennsylvania.
With polls showing Harris just 1 point ahead of Trump, Pennsylvania remains too close to call — and up for grabs.
Vance made a direct appeal to Steel City’s labor roots.
If his union Democrat grandparents were alive today, he said they’d see “the Democratic party of Kamala Harris has left them behind, and they are welcome in the Republican Party of Donald J. Trump,” as he boasted 65% of Pennsylvania Teamsters support Trump.
Cathy Collins, a Pittsburgh special-needs life coach, explained the Democratic drubbing. “The reason the union workers don’t go for them is they don’t have jobs,” she told The Post after the rally. She said her Democratic boilermaker friend is voting Republican for the first time because permitting restrictions have killed projects and jobs.
But the senator has other appeal too.
“Vance covers a lot of ground. He’s a Yale graduate so he can connect with the intellect,” Scott Sigmund, a retired IT worker who moved to Pittsburgh from Tennessee, told The Post. Now finishing college himself, he suggested Vance can speak the language of college-educated voters in the city now known for its universities and hospitals.
Steven Royer likes how the candidate deflects attacks and handles media interviews, citing Vance calling out ABC’s Martha Raddatz for downplaying the threat of migrant gangs.
“That’s righteous,” Royer told The Post.
Collins added Vance articulates Trump’s economic and border policies without the brashness.
“He gives a behind the scenes of what Trump will be doing,” she said, calling him a new and improved Trump.
“What Trump lacks, J.D. has.”
That applies to Vance’s humble origins: raised by his grandmother in Rust Belt Ohio because his mother was addicted to opioids.
“To me, Vance is us. I can relate to him. I can’t really relate to Trump,” Sigmund said. “I never knew my father, was abused by my stepdad, enlisted right out of high school,” he explained. Vance joined the Marine Corps after graduating high school.
“He’s the epitome of America.”
Collins said Vance’s roots in rural Kentucky would also help him in the rural counties surrounding Pittsburgh such as Washington County.
“You’re talking farm country, horse country. They had a hard time with drugs,” she said.
“He’s a good old country boy,” said Phyllis Hader, a retired nurse from rural Westmoreland County to Pittsburgh’s east. “He didn’t grow up spoiled.”
Vance makes up where Trump’s style turns off conservative voters.
“I’m not a big one for calling anybody names,” Collins said, saying that gives the left ammunition to attack Trump.
“I love him, but he hurt himself,” Collins said, “If he had been more careful with what he said, he wouldn’t have so many problems.”
Though Vance does not bring huge crowds, she said he tempers Trump.
“J.D. is going to help the Republican Party overall,” she said. “We want Vance as president next time around.”
While Vance went to the city this week, Walz went to red farm country in Volant to pick off those very voters Trump’s brash style has alienated.
“They’re trying to appeal to rural voters,” said Corinne, a professor from nearby Harlansburg who withheld her last name to protect her job.
Walz told the crowd of more than 100 about his upbringing driving tractors and shooting guns in small-town Nebraska.
“He has values that could appeal to someone who doesn’t like Trump but doesn’t think there’s a good option,” Corinne said, referring to Harris.
Corinne left the Republican Party and started voting for Democrats when Trump first ran in 2015, and her Republican parents still can’t vote for Trump.
“They never liked him. They’re conservative Christians,” she said, adding her mother in the oil and gas industry is hesitant to vote for Harris who’s flip-flopped on banning fracking.
The Democratic Party is “becoming an inclusive tent,” she said, but her parents didn’t join her at the Walz rally, which was a blue island in a county that went 64% for Trump in 2020: “It’s hard to change after so many years.”
But Joe Logan, Ohio Farmers Union president, is glad Walz came.
“You can’t expect to get any votes from anybody if you don’t show up,” said the Democrat, noting most farmers are voting for Trump because they disapprove of the Biden-Harris administration opening the border.
He likes Walz, he said, because the candidate understands how corporate consolidation in the food sector squeezes farmers but added they don’t usually listen to those economic explanations.
Rick Telesz learned that when he ran unsuccessfully against Republican Rep. Mike Kelly in 2022.
Telesz voted for Trump in 2016 but criticized Trump’s trade war with China and other economic policies in 2020. He voted for Biden and hosted Walz at his farm last week.
Telesz’s father said he got eight votes in their borough of 200.
“Farmers as consumers are brand loyal,” the former candidate said.
But Telesz stood by Walz who promised to recruit 10,000 rural healthcare workers and build 3,000 rural pharmacies to make sure farmers get affordable, quality healthcare.
“The American farmer could not ask for a better person sitting in the White House,” he said.
Still, Telesz knew Walz has an uphill battle with farmers.
Though he thought Biden’s nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan kept the economy going through the COVID-19 pandemic, he said most farmers blame that spending for inflated operating costs and tighter margins.
“He doesn’t need to talk to me. He needs to talk to the Trump supporters.”
