The attention paid to the state underscores its importance on Election Day.

With polls tightening in all swing states, Pennsylvania appears to the be the tightest. Such an even matchup is resulting in a number of visits from former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, their running mates, their spouses, and other campaign surrogates.

Trump will be speaking in Johnstown, Pa on Friday August 29th at a rally at the Cambria County War Memorial. It is his first return to Western Pennsylvania since he was nearly killed by a would-be assassin in Butler last month.

Harris and her vice-presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appeared at an event with their spouses and other Pennsylvania Democrats on August 18th in Aliquippa, while surrogates Sen. John Fetterman and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta wooed the crowd in Brookville at an annual event called “Demstock”.

While Trump will be in Johnstown Friday, Harris is making her way to Pittsburgh the following Monday. Both campaigns say their efforts in the Keystone State are aimed at reaching rural and urban voters.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, was in Erie this week, during which Vance took a sharp jab at Vice President Harris over the Biden-Harris administration’s “handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan”, saying Harris “can go to hell” for how the U.S. retreat was handled.

New Jersey politicians Gov. Phil Murphy and Sen. Cory Booker, both Democrats, plan on spending a good deal of time in Pennsylvania campaigning for the Harris-Walz ticket. Booker told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pennsylvania is “one of the most important states in the nation”, predicting it will decide who wins the White House.

The Harris campaign has faced criticism for tightly scripted and controlled events, particularly one stop in Pittsburgh with Walz before the Democratic convention last week. Some local Democrats complained about the well-choreographed event, saying it was an attempt to avoid the city’s Democratic Socialists of America protesting Harris over the United States’ support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Trump and Harris will face each other on September 10th at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for the first presidential debate between the two candidates.