KJZZ is a service of Rio Salado College,
and Maricopa Community Colleges

Copyright © 2024 KJZZ/Rio Salado College/MCCCD
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Harris and Walz campaign in Pennsylvania ahead of Democratic Convention

By Asma Khalid,
Lexie Schapitl
Published August 18, 2024 at 1:52 PM MST
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, greet supporters at Pittsburgh International Airport in Pittsburgh on Sunday.
Julia Nikhinson
/
AP
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, greet supporters at Pittsburgh International Airport in Pittsburgh on Sunday.

The NPR Network will be reporting live from Chicago throughout the week bringing you the latest on the Democratic National Convention.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz campaigned in western Pennsylvania Sunday, making their pitch to voters in the key battleground state ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

The first stop on the Democrats’ “bus tour” was at a campaign field office in conservative Beaver County, where Harris and Walz participated in a phone bank. Former President Trump carried Beaver County with nearly 60% of the vote in 2020.

Harris and Emhoff telephone prospective voters from a campaign field office in Rochester, Pa., on Sunday. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
KEVIN LAMARQUE/POOL / AFP via Getty Images
/
AFP via Getty Images
Harris and Emhoff telephone prospective voters from a campaign field office in Rochester, Pa., on Sunday. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

Pennsylvania, which Trump won in 2016 and Biden in 2020, remains perhaps the state most coveted by both candidates. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, will make campaign stops, separately, in York and Philadelphia on Monday.

Harris and Walz later spoke to supporters outside the field office. Harris told the crowd that her campaign was "born out of love of country."

"When you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for," Harris said. "When you stand for working people, you fight for working people. When you stand for freedom — whether it be to make decisions about your own body or love, who you love — you fight for those things...That's what our election is about."

Harris also said there has been "a perversion" in the last several years "to suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down when what we know is the real and true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up."

In his remarks, Walz recalled his days as a high school football coach.

"There's an old saying, 'You don't hope you're gonna win. You prepare to win, and you give it the best you got,'" Walz said. "And you know, when that game's over, you want to know you left it all on the field. And that's all we're asking. Let's leave it all in the field."

The bus tour is expected to include other stops in Beaver County, as well as the Democratic stronghold of Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and its suburbs. Trump campaigned on the opposite side of the state Saturday, holding a rally in Wilkes-Barre.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Loading...

Politics
Asma Khalid
Asma Khalid is a White House correspondent for NPR. She also co-hosts The NPR Politics Podcast. Khalid is a bit of a campaign-trail addict, having reported on the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections. She joined NPR's Washington team in 2016 to focus on the intersection of demographics and politics. During the 2020 presidential campaign, she covered the crowded Democratic primary field, and then went on to report on Joe Biden's candidacy. Her reporting often dives into the political, cultural and racial divides in the country. Before joining NPR's political team, Khalid was a reporter for Boston's NPR station WBUR, where she was nearly immediately flung into one of the most challenging stories of her career — the Boston Marathon bombings. She had joined the network just a few weeks prior, but went on to report on the bombings, the victims, and the reverberations throughout the city. She also covered Boston's failed Olympic bid and the trial of James "Whitey" Bulger. Later, she led a new business and technology team at the station that reported on the future of work. In addition to countless counties across America, Khalid's reporting has taken her to Pakistan, the United Kingdom and China. She got her start in journalism in her home state of Indiana, but she fell in love with radio through an internship at the BBC Newshour in London during graduate school. She's been a guest on numerous TV programs including ABC's This Week, CNN's Inside Politics and PBS's Washington Week. Her reporting has been recognized with the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Gracie Award. A native of Crown Point, Ind., Khalid is a graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington. She has also studied at the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics, the American University in Beirut and Middlebury College's Arabic school. [Copyright 2024 NPR]
Lexie Schapitl
Lexie Schapitl is an associate producer with NPR's Washington Desk, where she does a little bit of everything. She can be found reporting from Capitol Hill, producing the NPR Politics Podcast or writing the weekly NPR Politics newsletter. She also has extensive field production experience; she played a key role in coverage of the January 6th Committee hearings, Trump's first impeachment and the last three campaign cycles.