Harris and Trump are using different GOTV tactics in Pennsylvania

It’s time to close the deal.

With just four days left until Election Day, Pennsylvania has become the focal point of the nation and the epicenter of activity in both presidential campaigns as they seek to squeeze every last vote out of the Keystone State that could deliver the White House.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, who have made more than 50 trips to Pennsylvania this campaign cycle, will stop here again before Election Day. And across the Commonwealth, top surrogates will be organizing events, helping voters and supporting campaign volunteers.

All of this underscores the extent to which Pennsylvania has become perhaps America’s most important battleground state and the state that could decide the president. But although both sides are very focused here, they are using radically different tactics in the final hours before Election Day.

The Harris campaign and its allied groups – including labor unions and progressive political organizations – they use conventional tactics like mass door knocking and phone calls to ensure that their supporters become actual voters.

Top surrogates like first lady Jill Biden, former president Bill Clinton and former first lady Michelle Obama he will talk to voters in this state this weekend. Harris herself will stop at voting events in Allentown and Pittsburgh on Monday, then wrap up her election-eve campaign in Philadelphia, where she will host a major event and concert in front of the iconic Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Trump will also campaign in Pennsylvania ahead of Election Day – he plans to hold a rally in Lancaster County on Sunday, followed by two more on Monday in Reading and Pittsburgh.

But his campaign is taking a different approach to getting out the vote. The former president’s campaign reportedly targets a small number of voters who rarely cast ballots and relies in part on scattered, inexperienced outside groups, like a super PAC run by billionaire Elon Musk, motivate voters at the last stage.

Trump’s website focuses on fraud claims

The Trump campaign has also focused heavily on “election integrity,” assembling an army of lawyers and volunteers who monitor polling places on Election Day, challenging voters suspected of involvement in fraud, and filing a litany of lawsuits.

These efforts will also likely focus on Pennsylvania, which has already become the epicenter of Trump’s claims of election fraud. Over the last week made false statements regarding the collection of voter registration information and announced that they had “already started cheating” in the state.

Some of Trump’s top surrogates who are spreading conspiracy theories and false claims about the election in 2020 will be campaigning for him in Pennsylvania this weekend as part of a bus tour around the state. Among them is Peter Navarro, a Trump administration economist who was imprisoned this year for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, will also be in attendance. Days after the 2020 election, Bondi falsely claimed that Trump had won Pennsylvania and appeared outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, where ballots were being tallied, and demanded that the count be stopped.

The bus tour will also feature three lawmakers who voted to uphold objections to the election results in 2020: Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Ms.).

Harris’ side receives help from outside groups

Except for the Harris campaign own expansive field activities, dozens of outside groups are also working throughout the weekend to get out the vote.

One coalition of independent Democratic organizations plans to knock on more than 2.5 million doors in 27 counties before Election Day. (There are approximately 9 million registered voters in Pennsylvania.) This group includes progressive organizations such as the Working Families Party and For Our Future PA, as well as unions such as the Service Employees International Union and Unite Here, which represent workers in the hospitality industry.

The country’s top labor leaders are also campaigning for Harris in the region.

They include the presidents of national unions representing teachers, government workers and service workers, as well as Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the groups’ massive umbrella union. They will gather on Saturday morning in West Philadelphia with 600 people knocking on doors, and then on Saturday evening they will gather in South Philadelphia.

Jimmy Williams Jr., president of the national union representing painters, will also be in Philadelphia to campaign for Harris on Saturday, concluding a nationwide bus tour to encourage voting.

Inquirer staff writer Julia Terruso contributed to this article.