By SCOTT BAUER and AAMER MADHANI

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump will hold dueling rallies within 7 miles of each other Friday night in the Milwaukee area in a feverish event, final push for votes in Wisconsin’s largest county, a swing state.

Milwaukee is home to the most Democratic party votes in Wisconsinbut its conservative suburbs are where most Republicans live and are a critical area for Trump as he tries to reclaim the state he narrowly won in 2016 and lost in 2020. One reason The reason for his defeat was a decline in support in these Milwaukee suburbs and an increase in Democratic votes in the city.

“Both candidates recognize that the road to the White House runs directly through Milwaukee County,” said Hilario Deleon, chairman of the county Republican Party.

The dueling rallies — Trump is in downtown Milwaukee and Harris in a suburb — could be the candidates’ last appearances in Wisconsin before Election Day. Both sides say the race is once again very close for the state’s 10 electoral votes. Four of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than one point, or fewer than 23,000 votes.

Former Republican President Donald Trump gestures after speaking at a campaign rally at the Resch Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Democratic Vice President for President Kamala Harris arrives to speak at a campaign event Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

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Former Republican President Donald Trump gestures after speaking at a campaign rally at the Resch Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Develop

It was absentee ballots from Milwaukeewhich are usually reported early in the morning after Election Day, which tipped Wisconsin for the presidency. Joe Biden in 2020.

Democrats know they need to vote in Milwaukee, which is also home to the state’s largest black population, to counter Trump’s support in the suburbs and rural areas. Harris hopes to replicate, or even exceed, 2020 turnout in the city, which voted 79% for Biden that year.

Trump is trying to reduce the Democrats’ margin. Deleon called this the “lose with less” mentality.

Before heading to Milwaukee, Harris campaigned in the southern Wisconsin town of Janesville, where she expressed support for the labor movement in a speech to a local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

“No one understands better than a union member that as Americans, we all rise or fall together,” Harris said. She promised to eliminate “unnecessary” degree requirements for federal jobs and to encourage private-sector employers to do the same.

She called Trump “an existential threat to the American labor movement.”

Harris said Trump was “one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in American history,” clinging to the word “loser” as she was flanked by union workers in bright yellow T-shirts.

Trump, whose base includes working-class voters, has made sporadic efforts to reach out to rank-and-file unionists, who are traditionally the heart of the Democratic coalition.

Trump was in the Detroit area, where he stopped at a restaurant in Dearborn, the nation’s largest Arab-majority city, to meet with supporters. Many in the community remain wary after his first act in office in 2017 was to sign an executive order effectively banning travelers from majority-Muslim countries.

“We are finishing. We’ve been doing it for nine years, and now we’re ending it,” Trump said later at the start of a rally in Warren, Michigan. “And I hope we move on to the next phase, which will transform our country.”

In Milwaukee, many Democrats are “anxious and cautiously optimistic,” said Angela Lang, founder and executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities in Milwaukee.

“Especially given 2016 where there wasn’t the same amount of energy, I think it’s clear that Democrats have learned lessons about the importance of Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole,” she declared.

In another late outreach effort targeting black voters, former President Bill Clinton campaigned with local faith leaders Thursday night at a celebration center for African-American music and arts in Milwaukee.