Harris and Walz launch pre-convention bus tour in western Pennsylvania

PITTSBURGH — Vice President Kamala Harris joined her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and their spouses here to kick off a bus tour across a crucial part of this state, in a political show of force before Democrats kick off their national convention in Chicago.

The four shook hands and took selfies at an airport hangar but did not deliver remarks. At one point, the crowd of a few hundred people broke into chants of “We’re not going back!”

The multi-city tour is the first such swing for Harris, whose entrance into the presidential race four weeks ago has upended the 2024 contest against Republican nominee Donald Trump. Harris and Walz have often appeared together at rallies, but the bus tour also includes second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Walz’s wife, Gwen Walz.

“The stops will focus on meeting voters where they are in community settings and will range from a canvass kickoff and phone bank, to local retail stops and more,” Harris’s campaign said in a statement announcing the visit.

Two buses formed the backdrop as Air Force Two landed at Pittsburgh International Airport. One bus was emblazoned with the words “A New Way Forward.”

The campaign buses are expected to stop in Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh and a large cache of Democratic voters, and Beaver County, a more Republican-leaning area that Trump carried in 2020.

Pennsylvania has become the most hotly contested battleground in this election, with both candidates seeing its 19 electoral votes as crucial in most paths to victory.

Polls have shown a competitive race, with Harris improving on Biden’s numbers but not fully pulling away from Trump. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday shows Harris with a narrow lead over Trump. But as The Post noted, given the margin of error for the poll, which measured only national support, Harris’s lead among registered voters is not considered statistically significant.

In a sign of the central role Pennsylvania is playing in the race, Trump traveled to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Saturday for a rally. On Monday, Trump plans to visit York, Pa., for a speech on the economy, while his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, plans to visit Philadelphia.

During Trump’s speech Saturday, he launched into an attack on Harris’s appearance. “I am much better looking than her,” he said. “I’m a better-looking person than Kamala.”

He also mocked an illustration of Harris on the cover of Time Magazine, suggesting without evidence that the artist made the vice president look more attractive after photographers failed to get a satisfactory photo of her. He said the drawing looked like actresses Sophia Loren or Elizabeth Taylor.

Harris’s campaign did not respond directly to the personal attacks, calling Trump’s performance the “same old show” — echoing the comments Harris made after Trump falsely attacked her racial identity in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists last month.

Harris plans to attend the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday, when President Joe Biden is set to speak. She has another rally scheduled for Tuesday in Milwaukee, and plans to give her convention speech in Chicago on Thursday.

Candidates typically receive a bump in polling after their conventions, but Republicans have sought to make the case that Harris’s momentum has already begun to wane.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Vance said the vice president’s support has “leveled off” since she launched her campaign last month.

“There are a lot of polls that actually show her stagnating,” he said, referring to “internal data” without providing evidence.

The bus tour is Harris’s first campaign event since she began laying out her economic agenda, including proposals to eliminate medical debt, provide a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers and create a child tax credit that would provide $6,000 per child in the first year of a baby’s life.

Trump’s campaign has zeroed in on Harris’s proposal to ban price gouging on food and groceries, likening the proposal to a “communist” plan.

“Comrade Kamala announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls,” Trump said Saturday. “Never worked before.”

Dan Diamond contributed to this report from Washington.