Vice President Harris and President Biden appeared together at a Labor Day campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, with the vice president looking to solidify support from union members ahead of November.
The event in Pittsburgh will be Biden and Harris' first joint campaign appearance since Harris took over as the president's top Democratic candidate.
Ms Harris has signaled she intends to pursue labor policies largely in line with Mr Biden, who has long touted himself as the most pro-union president in history, including joining striking autoworker picket lines last year – the first time a sitting president has done so.
Harris has several major Labor union Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has negotiated with labor unions across the country, including the United Auto Workers (UAW), whose president, Sean Fain, cited her “record of success” with workers.
In a memo released last month, the Harris campaign argued that union members are key to the Democratic candidate's victory in November. The memo, first obtained by The Hill, highlighted Harris and Biden's track record of support for labor unions.
Ms Harris has sought to contrast herself with former President Trump, who has insisted union members would support her campaign despite being called a “scab” by Mr Fain.
“The Trump-Vance track record of attacking and undermining unions at every turn is harmful to working families,” Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in the memo. “Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have dedicated their entire careers to unions and the American worker, and now the nation's leading labor unions are bringing all of their organizational muscle and hundreds of millions of dollars to the White House to defeat Trump's anti-worker policies.”
The Harris campaign stressed that while unions have historically played a major role in “Blue Wall” states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, they are just as important in Sun Belt states like Arizona and Nevada.
Monday's visit to Pittsburgh was part of a Labor Day campaign for Harris, who plans to spend the first half of the holiday campaigning in Detroit, the union capital of Michigan's battleground state.
Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (Democrat), will spend the day in Milwaukee with his wife, while running mate Doug Emhoff will attend an event in Newport News, Virginia, according to the Harris campaign.
The vice president's visit to Pennsylvania comes as Harris and Trump remain neck and neck nationally and in battleground states. Since replacing Biden as the Democratic candidate, Harris has rapidly consolidated her support among Democrats, threatening the large lead Trump held over Biden during the campaign.
According to The Hill/Decision Desk polling index, Harris is leading Trump nationally by 3.8 percentage points.
Trump's allies argue that stealing some of Biden's support from labor unions, whom Trump lost by 14 percentage points to Biden in 2020, could shift the race.
