Debate prep: Harris hunkers in Pittsburgh with eye on crucial Pennsylvania 

PITTSBURGH — Vice President Harris is hunkering down in western Pennsylvania for almost a full week as she prepares to take on former President Trump in their first and perhaps only debate.

Harris arrived in Pittsburgh on Thursday and is expected to remain based there until the crucial clash, set for Tuesday in Philadelphia.

The vice president’s seemingly unusual decision to base herself outside of Washington may be intended to cultivate a positive atmosphere — and beneficial local media coverage — in a state that is the biggest and most crucial of the seven battlegrounds that will decide the election.

But the vice president will also be focusing intently on the debate itself, the most high-stakes moment for her candidacy since last month’s Democratic National Convention.

Philippe Reines, who served as a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of State, is playing Trump during preparations. Reines also stood in for Trump during Clinton’s preparation in 2016. Democratic operative Karen Dunn and Harris’s former Senate chief of staff Rohini Kosoglu are running the debate prep, a source familiar told The Hill.

The Keystone State carries the prize of 19 Electoral College votes, pushing their victor significantly closer to the White House. Biden, who considers Pennsylvania a home state along with Delaware, won the commonwealth in 2020 after Trump carried it in 2016.

Right now, the battle for the state seems balanced on a knife-edge. A CNN poll released Wednesday found the race there to be an exact tie, with 47 percent of voters apiece backing Harris and Trump.

In the polling average maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), Pennsylvania is also essentially tied, with Harris up by less than 1 percentage point.

Harris is following in former President Obama’s footsteps of choosing to do debate prep in a state that the campaign is laser-focused on in November.

Obama based himself in western North Carolina in 2008 while he prepared to debate then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). During his prep, he made an appearance at an Asheville, N.C., barbecue restaurant to talk to diners. Obama went on to win North Carolina in 2008, becoming the first Democrat to carry the state in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Harris traveled to Pittsburgh on Thursday afternoon and was greeted by Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.). 

Political watchers expect her to talk to Pennsylvania voters at some point between Friday and Monday, whether through formal planned events or informal stops like at a coffee shop. She will then travel from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on Tuesday to take the stage with Trump.

“If you go out to get a cup of coffee or decide to take a walk, you’re taking a walk in a state where you’re trying to generate news and interest,” a Democratic operative described. “It’s always better to not be at home. You want to be in a different environment so your brain can focus.”

Harris was also in Pittsburgh on Monday, when she joined Biden at their first official campaign event together — a joint stop in Maryland last month was technically a White House event, not run under the auspices of the Harris campaign. On Monday, Harris and the president spoke at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall, conducting a meet-and-greet with a friendly small crowd beforehand.

Harris’s choice to be in Pittsburgh before the debate is starkly different from Biden’s choice to hold his prep at Camp David ahead of his now-infamous June 27 clash with Trump. He was at the presidential retreat for a week, completely out of the public eye, before traveling to Atlanta for the debate, where he performed so poorly that it plunged his party into crisis and ultimately led to his exit from the race.

Former Pennsylvania Rep. Chris Carney (D), a senior adviser at Nossaman LLP, said debate prep in Pittsburgh is a way for Harris to be productive and present in a state that is so critical this cycle.

“Posting up in Pittsburgh is an efficiency thing. She can do debate prep and campaign stops in the western and northwestern part of the commonwealth, especially around Erie — obtainable Trump Dem votes there,” Carney said.

Erie County is considered a critical area in the battle to win the state. Biden won Erie by fewer than 1,500 votes after Trump won it in 2016 by fewer than 2,000 votes, according to NPR. 

Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), campaigned in Erie on Thursday and also traveled to Lancaster and Pittsburgh this week. While Harris is in Pittsburgh, second gentleman Doug Emhoff will travel to Wayne, a Philadelphia suburb, to campaign Sunday. 

Todd Belt, director of the political management program at the Graduate School of Political Management at the George Washington University, reiterated the importance of Erie County as a bellwether.

But Belt also noted that any positive attention Harris receives in western Pennsylvania in general could help in a key task — narrowing Trump’s margins in some of the rural and exurban counties where Republicans hold an advantage.

“Remember, the goal is not to win the rural white vote — the goal is not to lose it as badly as Hillary Clinton did,” Belt said. “It all goes toward the state totals.”

Belt also suggested that the kind of local coverage engendered by any informal visits Harris makes while in the area could be politically useful.

“The alternative is not doing it — and then you open yourself up to the attack of being elite and disconnected, one of the ‘coastal elites.’”

Harris’s decision may not sound like the kind of momentous decision upon which an election hinges.

But in a state where the margin of victory has been so slim in the past two elections, even the slightest advantage could make all the difference.