Texas is not a usual stop for a Democratic presidential candidate, yet 11 days out from the election, that’s where Kamala Harris could be found.
The vice-president held a campaign rally in the traditionally Republican state on Friday, appearing alongside Beyoncé and the Senate candidate Colin Allred. But it is not just Democrats who are venturing into uncharted territory – on Sunday Donald Trump will appear at Madison Square Garden, in the deep blue New York.
Both candidates will be visiting key swing states including Michigan and Pennsylvania in the coming days, but these extra-curricular visits give them a chance to tap into key messages, in moments the Harris and Trump campaigns will be eagerly capturing and distributing online.
In an election which will essentially be decided by voters in seven or fewer states, it’s also a chance to demonstrate inclusiveness, said Shannon Bow O’Brien, a politics professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
“One of things people criticize the Democrats for, and I think rightly so, is they frequently treat the interior of the country like flyover country, and they routinely ignore these types of places,” O’Brien said.
“I think maybe also going down here, is signaling that she’s gonna pay attention to these areas too.”
For Harris, the visit to Texas was an opportunity for her to drive home the right to abortion, which she has made one of the key issues of her campaign. Trump has bragged about being responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion in the US.
The vice-president’s campaign launched a series of new abortion-related ads this week, telling the story of a Texas woman who contracted a life-threatening infection when was denied proper medical care after miscarrying at 16 weeks pregnant.
“Texas is symbolically really important, because abortion for Harris is a strong issue, and Texas has been the origin of a number of really heartbreaking stories about the consequences of an abortion ban. And any meaningful challenges to the ban in front of the supreme court have come from women out of Texas,” said Mona Kleinberg, a professor of political communication at the City University of New York.
The Texas stop created another thing: content. Aided by the star power of Beyoncé, the Harris campaign will hope that their message about Trump and abortion can gain a wide audience online, including in swing states.
“Obviously the most important decision a presidential campaign makes is where their principal is spending time,” David Plouffe, a Harris senior adviser, told the Washington Post. “So the fact that we’re going to Texas means we really believe that will help us in those seven battleground states.”
Kleinberg said the presence of Beyoncé added a level of excitement that Harris may be struggling to generate, while also guaranteeing coverage on national news shows.
“Obama was such a good orator, he had all this charm, he generated a lot of excitement. Harris hasn’t been able to do the same: in part because she has had less time, in part because she’s a woman, she has this double burden, but I think she needs that. That’s why Beyoncé is important,” Kleinberg said.
The Texas trip came as Trump prepared to visit New York, where he lived for decades before departing after his first pugnacious election campaign. His appearance, at the famous arena in midtown, has same thinking as Harris’s Texas visit, Kleinberg said: highlight a key campaign issue while drawing eyeballs. States including Texas have sent more than 45,000 undocumented migrants on buses to New York, and Trump will likely be aiming to play on fear around the issue.
“It’s about creating enthusiasm, and lots of anger. Anger is the number one mobilizing emotion, political psychology research shows this over and over again. Anger makes people not think but act. And so that’s what they’re going to be trying to generate,” Kleinberg said.
For a born-and-raised New Yorker who has spent a lifetime seeking the spotlight, an attraction will also be simply the thrill of appearing at one of the most famous venues in the world – which is also a mile from Trump Tower, where Trump still has an apartment.
“He’s going to get a big crowd. He loves the adulation. He’s going to get a lot of attention. Everybody’s going to be talking about him. That’s nectar to Trump’s ears,” O’Brien said.
“And it’s a hell of a lot easier just to go there and then go to bed at Trump Tower than it is to be rigorously campaigning around the country.”
