Trump and Harris are both visiting the Milwaukee area in the swing state of Wisconsin

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

Milwaukee is home to the most Democratic votes in Wisconsinbut its conservative suburbs are where most Republicans live and are a critical area for Trump as he tries to recapture 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 surge 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’s Republican Party.

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

Both venues drew roughly the same number of people, based on crowd estimates provided by each promotion. Trump took the stage seven minutes before Harris.

The two rallies — Trump in downtown Milwaukee and Harris in a suburb — may be the candidates’ last appearance in Wisconsin before Election day. Both sides say the race is once again tight 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.

That was it absentee votes from Milwaukeewhich is typically reported early the morning after Election Day tipped Wisconsin for president Joe Biden in 2020.

Democrats know they need to appeal to voters in Milwaukee, also home to the state’s largest black population, to counter Trump’s suburban and rural support. Harris hopes to replicate and surpass the 2020 voter turnout in the city, which voted 79% for Biden that year.

Trump is trying to cut into the Democrats’ margin. Deleon called it a “lose with less” mentality.

Before heading to Milwaukee, Harris campaigned in the southern Wisconsin city of Janesville, where she touted her support for organized labor in a speech at a local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

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

She called Trump “an existential threat to America’s labor movement” and said the nation lost manufacturing jobs during his presidency.

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

Harris later went after Trump on health care, telling hundreds packed into a high school in Little Chute that the former president wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and take America back to the days when insurers could deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

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

“Did you hear what Donny Trump said the other day?” Cardi B said on stage, referencing Trump saying he wants to protect women “whether they like it or not.”

“Donny, don’t,” she said. “Please.”

At the same rally, Harris told the raucous 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, he is consumed with grievance and the man is after unchecked power.”

Across town, Trump railed against the economy under Biden. The US jobs report released Friday, showing employers added just 12,000 jobs in October, suggests the Biden-Harris administration is failing the economy, he said.

“This is like a depression,” Trump said of the numbers as he lobbed insults at Harris.

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

Trump held his microphone in his hand for most of the rally after the audience had trouble hearing him. Complaining about the weight of the microphone, he joked, “It’s like I’m lifting weights,” and went on to take out his frustration on the production team.

“Do you want to see me knock people off the stage backstage?” he asked the crowd.

Trump supporters waiting in line for his Milwaukee rally said they felt optimistic about his chances of winning next week.

“I feel the Democrats can only win 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 were wearing yellow reflective safety vests in response Biden’s comment apparently calling Trump supporters “garbage”.

Trump spent the afternoon in the Detroit area, where he stopped at a restaurant in Dearbornthe country’s largest city with an Arab majority, to meet with supporters. Many in the community remain suspicious after his first act in office in 2017 was to sign an executive order effectively banning 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 2016, where 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 night at a center celebrating African-American music and art in Milwaukee.

Hillary Clinton did not campaign in Wisconsin in 2016 after her primary loss, a mistake Harris does not repeat. Friday’s stop is her ninth in the state as a presidential candidate. It’s Trump’s 10th stop in Wisconsin, not counting the Republican National Convention, which was held in Milwaukee.

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

Milwaukee’s election commission estimated Thursday that it expects to receive more than 100,000 ballots before Election Day. But it lags early with vote returns from the conservative suburbs.

Lang, the Milwaukee organizer, said it’s a tradition for many voters her group contacts 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 that has worked to increase voter turnout.

Trump’s rally was held in the same arena where the Republican convention took place three months ago. The Harris rally, held at the state fairgrounds 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.