Kamala Harris meets in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG — Vice President Kamala Harris had an urgent but animated message for voters in south-central Pennsylvania on Wednesday as they head home to the election. With six days to go until Election Day, Harris said “ours is a fight for democracy.”

Harris campaigned in front of crowds at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg — her first visit to central Pennsylvania since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. After her speech was disrupted by a handful of pro-Palestinian protesters, Harris used the moment to underscore the importance of disagreeing.

“This is what is at stake in this election,” Harris said. “Everyone has the right to be heard, but at this time I am speaking.”

As Election Day looms in less than a week and the race between Harris and the former president takes place Donald Trump Standing neck and neck on the Pennsylvania battlefield, Harris seemed more excited than previous rallies as she cast herself as a warrior and emphasized the economic consequences of her policy proposals. She talked about offering a tax cut to 100 million Americans, reiterated her commitment to enact a federal ban on price gouging, and emphasized the affordability of housing, health care, child care, and elder care, which under her plan would be covered by Medicare.

Harris gave the speech before several thousand supporters at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center, the state’s million-square-foot campus that hosts the nation’s largest indoor agricultural event each January. Trump has appeared here — in a separate arena on the other side of the building — at two recent events, including a campaign rally and a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. In her remarks, which lasted less than 30 minutes, Harris also pledged to unite the country and stand up for people who disagree with her, as some attendees held up “Republicans for Harris” signs.

As the two pro-Palestinian protesters were escorted out, the crowd booed them. Harris told those in attendance that it was OK for the protesters to disagree.

“It must be emphasized at this particular moment that, unlike Donald Trump, I do not believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy within,” Harris said. “He wants to put them in jail, I’m giving them a seat at the table.”

Harris’ comments highlighted the risk she said another Trump presidency would pose to abortion rights and reproductive health.

She noted that when Trump was president, he chose three conservative justices with the intention of having them overturn abortion protections Roe v. Wade.

“Now in America, one in three women lives in a state with Trump’s abortion ban. Many, without exception, even when it comes to rape and incest, which is immoral,” she said as the crowd began to boo in agreement. “He would ban abortion nationwide — yes, even here in Pennsylvania — if he succeeded,” she added.

Harris warned of other restrictions on reproductive rights that she said a Trump presidency would bring, including limiting access to contraception and “compromising in vitro fertilization treatments,” a reference to provisions outlined in the conservative Project 2025a 900-page policy proposal that Trump has tried to distance himself from. The project was put together by more than 100 former Trump administration staffers.

Nervous – but excited – Dad voters

Natalie Dozier turns 33 on November 6, the day after the election. She thinks she will celebrate Harris’ victory and made new friends at the Harrisburg rally who she invited to her birthday party later that week.

“This is my first rally, this is my first presidential election that I’ve ever donated to. This is surreal to me. I can’t even describe it,” Dozier said. ‘I love her. I know she will be a great president.”

Dozier, who said she is half-black, half-Puerto Rican and married to another woman, said she is “all targets” she fears a Trump presidency would target. And she had a message for the Hispanic and Latino community, which she said in Spanish before translating to English: “We’re moving forward, we’re not going back.”

The rally featured the hype playlist — featuring songs from Beyoncé, DMX, DJ Khaled and others — strobe lights and light-up bracelets now common at Harris rallies.

Harris supporters in Harrisburg — a somewhat diverse crowd for the predominantly white county where the Pennsylvania Capitol is located — took advantage of the vice president’s name with signs that read “Harris Burg.”

More than a half-dozen Harris supporters said they were cautiously optimistic that Pennsylvania would choose her over Trump. But no one had confidence in it.

“The race is too close,” said Chris Smith, 65, of Harrisburg.

Carol Butler, 80, who decades ago once thought she was the only Democrat in Dauphin County, said Wednesday she thought Harris would win.

“One day I feel this way, but the next day I don’t,” she added.

Butler said she hoped Harris would counter Republican arguments about the U.S.-Mexico border and its work to prosecute criminals with the facts about how President Joe Biden’s administration had made progress on the issue. Harris did not mention illegal immigration in her stump speech.

The McGann family of York County came out in full force to see Harris, including their two young sons, ages 5 and 10 months. Their mother, Mida McGann, 38, said they brought a handwritten card with a photo of their family to give to Harris, but were unable to deliver it to the vice president before she left town.

“I wanted my sons to be part of history,” she said.