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PITTSBURGH — Billed as a Pittsburgh kickoff bus tour on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz instead spent Aug. 18 in Beaver County in tightly controlled stops before heading to Chicago.
Harris held a short rally at a private airport hangar surrounded by supporters — mostly members of local unions — who were bussed in for the event, before heading off to two retail stops and a visit to a phone bank before finishing the day at a local Sheetz gas station.
Beaver County, located to the west of Allegheny County, adjacent to the airport, was once a powerful component of the Democratic Party, filled with union families who worked at the Steel Mills in Aliquippa and Ambridge. As the Democratic Party shifted left, the voters moved toward the Republican Party. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump won the county over Joe Biden by nearly 20 percentage points.
While some local Democrats thought the move was strategic, to show Harris was attempting to expand her universe, others were more cynical, citing the tight control of who attended her planned events and the risk she would take doing an event in Pittsburgh and possibly facing her party’s pro-Hamas contingent, which has become politically vocal in the city.
Recently that movement, spearheaded by the Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America, came to a head when a proposed ballot question that would ban Pittsburgh from doing business with companies that have financial ties to Israel has spurred accusations of antisemitism and placed Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey on the hot seat.
