On a whirlwind tour of Pennsylvania, Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris spoke on Monday to a crowd of thousands at The Carrie Blast Furnaces National Historic Landmark for less than 10 minutes, repeating a pledge to represent all Americans.
"Tomorrow is election day and the momentum is on our side," she declared shortly after taking the stage. "We have an opportunity in this election to finally turn the page on a decade of politics driven by fear and division."
While Harris didn't mention Donald Trump, her Republican opponent, by name, she drew an implicit contrast with him: "Instead of stewing over an enemies list, I will spend every day working on my to-do list."
That assertion was among the tropes familiar from the stump speech she had been making in the race's final stretch. She said little about policy beyond a reaffirmation of her support for abortion rights, saying the campaign was engaged in "a fight for the future [and] for freedom. Like the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body, and not have government tell her what to do."
But for the most part, Harris eschewed division or policy differences. Instead, she focused most heavily on her desire to "seek common ground and common-sense solutions to the challenges you face." And she said that "fighting for a democracy" means making room for those who disagree.
"[Giving them] a seat at the table [is] what real leaders do. That is what strong leaders do," she told supporters — estimated at approximately 15,000 by the campaign for the ticketed event — at the industrial site in Swissvale. "And I pledge to always put country above party and self, ask to be a president for all Americans."
Harris' stop in Western Pennsylvania was sandwiched between appearances in Reading and Philadelphia. Among those who joined her at The Carrie Furnaces was actress and singer Andra Day, who performed earlier in the evening, and actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer, who introduced her by saying: "She is not a demagogue, but she is not demure."
"America is ready for a new generation of leadership," he told the crowd.
Following Harris' remarks, singer Katy Perry took the stage to perform a brief set, starting with her 2013 hit, “Dark Horse," before imploring voters to support Harris in the voting booth on Tuesday.
Hours before Harris arrived to take the stage Monday night, it was clear that this pre-Election Day rally would be her largest Western Pennsylvania event since her surprise bid for president launched earlier this year.
And Gretta Price, for one, was in no doubt about the outcome of the votes to be cast Tuesday.
"She's going to win," said Price. "The Lord tells me."
Beneath the shadows of the century-old blast furnaces — among the last remnants of the region's once-mighty steel industry — Harris supporters began streaming in around mid-afternoon. Most had parked at Kennywood, across the Monongahela River, and were brought in on chartered buses, which had to deftly negotiate the backstreets of nearby Rankin.
Once they arrived, supporters found a celebratory, almost block-party atmosphere, complete with a half-dozen food trucks, music, and dancing.
"I'm so happy to be here," said Margaret Bish, who'd come from Ford City in Armstrong County to see Harris. The Democratic nominee, Bish said, "cares about working people, and about women and their bodies. Donald Trump doesn't."
Bish said she'd already brought one new supporter into the fold: "This is the first year I got my husband to vote. I've been working on him for years, and he finally just said, 'That guy [former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump] should not be in office."
WESA spoke with several attendees who came to the rally from outlying counties, where they said they were trying to make inroads in traditionally Republican areas. They said women were particularly receptive to their outreach — in part because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, made possible by Trump-appointed justices, that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. And they predicted Harris might draw some votes from unexpected quarters.
Lori Cipkins, a volunteer with the Butler County Democrats, said that at community events where she staffs a Democratic Party booth, "Women will walk by and give you a thumbs-up" — albeit held close to their chest — "and give you a wink."
Cipkins said it meant a lot for Harris, whose previous visits to the region have been smaller-bore events in front of smaller audiences, to come to Western Pennsylvania for a large-scale rally.
"It feels like a big thank-you and an acknowledgment that rural Democrats really matter," she said.
Harris "is our next president," said Burton Comensky of Duquesne. Asked what would deliver the victory for her, he gestured around him at a crowd of varying demographics.
"The people," he said. "They're enthusiastic, and this is a big tent."
Trump — who appeared Monday night at his own campaign event eight miles away, at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh — emerged on the political scene promising to turn around post-industrial communities like those in the Mon Valley. But Comensky — who has long been active in area politics — called Trump a "bad actor" who did little for the Valley. By contrast, he said, Harris "is better equipped to bring the country back to the right place."
The Carrie Furnaces site made for an evocative backdrop for the Harris event. Now a national heritage area, it is the kind of location in which Trump himself might campaign: a testament to the strength of the nation’s manufacturing base and a sign of enduring nostalgia for it 40 years later.
The hulking, 92-foot-high blast furnaces date back to 1906 and 1907, and they remain one of the last — and most impressive — remnants of the once-mighty Homestead Works. Furnaces 6 and 7 were among the first designed to smelt ore from the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota — where Harris' running mate Tim Walz serves as governor — and convert it into molten iron. They helped usher in a period of manufacturing dominance in the Mon Valley for more than a half-century, until the Homestead Works closed in 1986.
The reasons for that closure and those of other mills throughout the region remain hotly contested, though most explanations involve a combination of foreign competition, a failure to keep pace with technological advances, a shift away from steel to other materials, and dysfunctional labor/management relations. Conspicuously absent from the list are often-complained-about trade deals with China and Mexico: Pittsburgh’s steelmaking base had already been decimated by then.
For Gretta Price, who said she lived in Rankin just up the hill all her life, Harris' candidacy marked a chance for something new. (Her father, she said, had worked in the Carrie Furnaces complex.) While Rankin has long struggled, she said, there were encouraging signs of progress. And electing a woman of color like Harris, she said, was "very important to move this country."
Quoting a Harris campaign slogan, she said, "We aren't going back," and laughed.
