Recent polls are showing Hillary Clinton leading by 8 points in Pennsylvania, and by even wider margins in and around big cities.
Clinton has focused much of her Pennsylvania ground time on those liberal urban areas. But on Tuesday, vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine ventured out to Lancaster to make an appeal to voters there.
Kaine gave a pointed speech at the Boys and Girls Club of Lancaster, making several overtures to small business owners, and pledging support for people struggling in the still-sluggish economy.
“We’re not the ones rooting for the overdog, we’re the ones pulling for the underdog,” he said. “It’s a classic American value and it’s a classic strength of our party.”
But Kaine spent the bulk of his appearance attacking Donald Trump.
He derided Trump’s lack of concrete policy positions, and questioned why the Republican refuses to release his tax returns.
“Richard Nixon released his tax returns,” he said. “If you can’t come up to the ethical standard of Richard Nixon, you should not be within 10 time zones of being commander in chief.”
Kaine also claimed Trump’s alleged ties to Russia could compromise national security, and referenced Trump’s calls for Russian intelligence to find Clinton’s emails.
“Are we confident that if Russia tried to engage in activity to destabilize an election in the United States, that Donald Trump would stand up against them?” he asked.
Trump has maintained that the Russia comments were sarcastic.
The national poll gap between Clinton and Trump has narrowed slightly over the last few weeks. But Clinton still leads comfortably, by 6 points.
