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Harris and Trump use different GOTV tactics in Pennsylvania
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Harris and Trump use different GOTV tactics in Pennsylvania

It’s time to close the deal.

With just four days until Election Day, Pennsylvania has become a focal point of the nation and an epicenter of activity for both presidential campaigns as they attempt to wring every last vote out of the Keystone State, this who could win the White House.

vice-president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trumpwho have already visited Pennsylvania more than 50 times this campaign cycle, will stop here again before Election Day. And across the Commonwealth, top surrogates will host events, reach out to voters and energize campaign volunteers.

All of this underscores the extent to which Pennsylvania has become perhaps America’s most crucial battleground and the state likely to determine the president. But while both camps are intensely focused on this issue, they are using radically different tactics in the final hours before Election Day.

The Harris campaign and its allied groups – including unions and progressive political organizations – use conventional tactics such as massive door-to-door canvassing and phone calls to ensure their supporters become real voters.

The best surrogates like the first lady Jill Bidenformer President Bill Clinton and former first lady Michelle Obama will speak to voters as it stands this weekend. Harris herself will stop at mobilization events in Allentown and Pittsburgh on Monday, then wrap up her campaign on election eve in Philadelphia, where she will hold a major event and concert. in front of the iconic Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Trump will also campaign in Pennsylvania before Election Day — he is scheduled to hold a rally in Lancaster County on Sunday, then two more, in Reading and Pittsburgh, on Monday.

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 do not vote frequently and relies in part on disparate and inexperienced outside groups, like a super PAC led by billionaire Elon Musk, to motivate voters in the home stretch.

Trump side focuses on fraud allegations

Trump’s campaign has also focused much of its attention on “election integrity,” assembling an army of lawyers and volunteers to monitor polling places on Election Day, challenging voters they suspect of fraud, and file a litany of lawsuits.

That effort will also likely be focused in Pennsylvania, which has already become the epicenter of Trump’s election fraud claims. Over the past week, he made false statements about collecting voter registrations and proclaimed “they have already started cheating” in the state.

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

Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, will also be in attendance. Bondi falsely claimed in the days after the 2020 election that Trump had won Pennsylvania and appeared outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia where ballots were being counted and demanded a halt to the count.

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

Harris side gets help from outside groups

In addition to the Harris campaign own extensive field operation, Dozens of outside groups are also working throughout the weekend to get out the vote.

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

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

They include the presidents of the national unions that represent teachers, civil servants and service workers, as well as Liz Shuler, the president of the AFL-CIO, the large umbrella union for these groups. They will gather West Philadelphia Saturday morning with 600 knockers at the door, then rally South Philadelphia Saturday evening.

Jimmy Williams Jr., president of the national union that represents painters, will also be in Philadelphia to campaign for Harris on Saturday, capping a national get-out-the-vote bus tour here.

Inquirer writer Julia Terruso contributed to this article.