MILWAUKEE (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump organized gatherings within 7 miles of each other in the Milwaukee area on Friday evening as part of a feverish rally final push for voting in the largest county in the swing state of Wisconsin.

Milwaukee is home to the most Democratic voting in Wisconsinbut the conservative suburbs are where most Republicans live and are a critical area for Trump as he tries to win back the state he narrowly won in 2016 and lost in 2020. One reason for his defeat was a drop in support in those Milwaukee suburbs and a rise in the city’s Democratic vote.

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

Air Force Two, the vice presidential plane, landed at the Milwaukee airport about 40 minutes earlier than Trump’s private plane, which he has dubbed Trump Force One. The planes parked close together, but the candidates did not cross paths; Harris’ motorcade was gone before Trump landed.

Both locations attracted approximately the same number of people, based on audience estimates provided by each campaign. Trump took the stage seven minutes before Harris.

The two rallies — Trump was in downtown Milwaukee and Harris in the suburbs — could be the candidates’ final appearances in Wisconsin. Election Day. Both parties say the race is once again very close for the state’s ten electoral votes. Four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin were decided by less than one point, or fewer than 23,000 votes.

It was absentee votes from Milwaukeewhich are typically reported early in the morning after Election Day, making Wisconsin a presidential contender Joe Biden in 2020.

Democrats know they must turn out voters in Milwaukee, which also has the state’s largest black population, to counter Trump’s support in the suburbs and rural areas. Harris hopes to match and surpass the 2020 turnout in the city, which saw 79% vote for Biden that year.

Trump is trying to reduce the Democrats’ margin. Deleon called it a “lose for less” mentality.

Before heading to Milwaukee, Harris campaigned in the southern Wisconsin city of Janesville, where she voiced her support for organized labor in a speech to a local 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 pledged to eliminate “unnecessary” degree requirements for federal jobs and push private sector employers to do the same.

She called Trump “an existential threat to the American labor movement” and said the country lost manufacturing jobs during his presidency.

Trump, whose base includes working-class voters, has made sporadic efforts to reach rank-and-file union members who have traditionally formed the core of the Democratic coalition.

Harris later went after Trump on health care, telling hundreds of people gathered at a Little Chute high school that the former president wants to overturn the Affordable Care Act and return the United States to the time when insurers could deny coverage to people with pre-existing health insurance. conditions.

Rapper Cardi B was among the celebrities at Harris’ third and final Wisconsin gathering, in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis.

“Did you hear what Donny Trump said the other day?” Cardi B said on stage, referencing Trump’s statement that he will protect women “whether they like it or not.”

“Donny, don’t do that,” she said. “Please.”

At the same rally, Harris told the rowdy crowd that Trump is bad for the economy, their health care and women’s reproductive rights.

“We know who Donald Trump is,” she said. “This is not someone who thinks about how to make your life better. This is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed by resentment and bent on unchecked power.”

Across town, Trump railed against the economy under Biden. The US Jobs Report Released Friday, which shows employers added just 12,000 jobs in October, suggests the Biden-Harris administration is failing on the economy, he said.

“This is like a depression,” Trump said of the numbers while insulting Harris.

Economists estimate that Hurricanes Helene and Milton, combined with strikes at Boeing and elsewhere, depressed net job growth in October by tens of thousands of jobs.

Trump held his microphone for most of the meeting after the crowd had difficulty hearing him. He complained about the weight of the microphone and joked, “It’s like I’m lifting weights,” then vented his frustration on the production team.

“Do you want to see me beat the shit out of people backstage?” he asked the crowd.

Trump supporters who lined up for his rally in Milwaukee said they were optimistic about his chances of winning next week.

“I feel like the only way the Democrats can win is if they cheat,” said Matt Kumorkiewicz, 55, a retired carpenter from nearby Oak Creek, echoing a common refrain from the former president.

He and several others in line wore yellow reflective safety vests in response Biden’s comment apparently calling Trump supporters “trash.”

Trump spent the afternoon in the Detroit area, where he stopped at a restaurant in Dearbornthe country’s largest Arab-majority city, to meet supporters. Many in the community remain suspicious after his first act in office in 2017 was to sign an executive order that effectively bans travelers from predominantly Muslim countries.

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 the year 2016, when there wasn’t the same amount of energy, I think it’s clear that the Dems have learned lessons about the importance of Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole,” she said.

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

Hillary Clinton did not campaign in Wisconsin in 2016 after her primary defeat, a mistake Harris will not repeat. The Friday stop is her ninth in the state as a presidential candidate. It is Trump’s tenth stop in Wisconsin, not counting the Republican National Convention, which was held in Milwaukee.

Brian Schimming, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said Harris’ return to Democratic stronghold Milwaukee shows she is on the defensive while Trump is on the attack.

The Milwaukee Election Commission estimated Thursday that it expects more than 100,000 ballots by Election Day. But that lags behind early voting results from conservative suburbs.

Lang, the Milwaukee organizer, said it is a tradition for many voters with her group to cast their ballots on Election Day. And if they don’t?

“Then we’re in a world of trouble,” said Mandela Barnes, a former lieutenant governor and president of Power to the Polls, a group dedicated to increasing voter turnout.

Trump’s rally took place in the same arena where the Republican convention took place three months ago. The Harris rally, held at State Fair Park in West Allis, included performances by GloRilla, Flo Milli, MC Lyte and DJ Gemini Gilly.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.