ROCHESTER, Pa. — Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz gave pep talks to campaign volunteers and a high school football team Sunday, with their bus tour in a corner of Pennsylvania serving as a modest, small-town version of the grand rally she's expected to have at the Democratic nominating convention in Chicago this week.

Vice President Harris and Walz, the governor of Minnesota, were joined by their spouses, Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, as they toured in a blue bus, stopping off to visit volunteers at a campaign office not far from Pittsburgh before continuing on to a firehouse and a high school in another town.

Throughout their stops, Harris and her running mate shied away from policy or much politics, instead sticking to broad-strokes messages focused on character, perseverance and the future of the country.

Harris, while speaking to a group of supporters and volunteers outside the campaign office in the borough of Rochester, spoke about strength and leadership. She appeared to make a veiled reference to Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, who is known for his pugilistic style and projection of a strongman image, when she said the “real and true measure of a strength of a leader is based on who you lift up,” rather than who they beat down.

“Anybody who is about beating down other people is a coward,” she yelled, drawing cheers and applause. “This is what strength looks like.”

Walz in his remarks seemed to assume the role of his former job coaching high school football and told the volunteers: “Let’s leave it all on the field. Let’s get this thing done.”

Rochester is in in Beaver County, which Trump won in 2020. But the Democrats are riding on renewed enthusiasm after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid exactly four weeks ago and endorsed Harris to replace him on the ticket.

As Harris' motorcade left the town, it rolled by a group of about 50 Trump supporters waiting near the road with signs of support for the former president. A handful of Harris supporters were standing nearby with their own signs.

The vice president next stopped at a firehouse in Aliquippa, where she met firefighters, petted the station's dog and gave the crew almond pastries, before heading to a nearby high school, where they met with the local football coach and addressed the team, who kneeled on the field to listen.

Walz again slipped into coach mode, reminiscing a bit about his days leading a team and the sport's character before introducing Harris. She praised the young athletes for their leadership: “Our nation is counting on you and your excellence. We applaud your ambition.

She also told them, “Welcome to the role model club.”

Southwestern Pennsylvania is a critical part of a key battleground state that has long commanded the attention of presidential candidates. The state voted for Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020. Both Harris and Trump are vying to see who can put Pennsylvania in their column on Nov. 5.

Most polls, including from the New York Times/Siena College and Fox News, find Harris and Trump locked in a tight race statewide.

Trump held a rally Saturday in Wilkes-Barre in the northeastern part of the state, following his earlier rallies in July in Harrisburg and Butler, where he survived an assassination attempt.

The bus tour marks Harris' eighth trip to Pennsylvania this year, and her second this month. The vice president chose to make her first joint appearance with Walz on the ticket in Philadelphia on Aug. 6.

On Sunday, they arrived with their spouses earlier at Pittsburgh International Airport and greeted supporters. The foursome held hands and raised their arms together before cheering supporters who held campaign signs.

They then boarded a bright blue bus that says “Harris Walz” in big white letters as they set off to make stops in the Pittsburgh area to glad-hand with voters.

In Rochester, Harris, Walz and their spouses spent a few minutes sitting at tables with volunteers and making phone calls to line up support.

“79 days to go, Hannah,” Harris said while on the phone.

At another point while making calls, she said, “We’re all in this together.”

Walz hung up his phone and said of the caller, “He’s all in,” and gave a thumbs up. He made another call and asked the person on the line, “How are you feeling? What are you hearing from folks?”

Kristin Kanthak, associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, said Pennsylvania “is a state that traditionally has been super important, but southwestern Pennsylvania has been really kind of the battleground part of the battleground state.”

Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, is a diverse county with urban, suburban and rural areas, and a lot of people there haven't decided how they will vote, she said.

“It makes sense to come here and ask for votes because there are votes up for grabs here,” Kanthak said of Harris. “It’s not just about turning out your base. It’s about having an opportunity to speak to truly undecided voters.”

In the 2020 race, Biden won Allegheny County with 60% of the vote, while Trump won neighboring Beaver County, which includes Rochester, with about 58% of the vote.

After Trump’s surprise win in the state in 2016, Biden flipped Pennsylvania in 2020 — and, in so doing, won the White House — in part by running up his vote totals in heavily Democratic Pittsburgh, the state’s second-largest city and the county seat of Allegheny County.

Biden assiduously courted the area’s blue-collar labor unions, kicking off his 2020 presidential campaign at a Teamsters hall in Pittsburgh by declaring, “I am a union man.” As president, he opposed the acquisition of Pittsburgh’s storied U.S. Steel by a Japanese company, saying it “should remain totally American,” and enacted steeper tariffs on Chinese steel.

Trump, who is counting on strong turnout from his base of white, working-class voters, is not conceding the area. The counties around Pittsburgh have shifted from Democrat to Republican in recent presidential contests, delivering for Trump in both of his earlier runs.

Trump has also embraced protectionist trade policies and insists he is pro-worker. His vow to increase U.S. energy production and “drill, baby, drill” has resonated in southwestern Pennsylvania blue-collar counties like Washington, where a natural gas drilling boom has helped make Pennsylvania the nation’s No. 2 producer after Texas. Harris once wanted to ban fracking, an oil and gas extraction process, before recently disavowing her earlier position.

Dana Brown, director of Chatham University's Pennsylvania Center for Women & Politics, said in an interview that Harris will use the bus trip to spin up local media coverage as well as reach out to voters in the state's southwestern region “while she still has a great deal of momentum at her back."

“She is going to garner a lot of that free media attention,” Brown said. “I believe their hope ... is to keep that momentum up and focused on her and less so on her opponent.”

Bus tours have become a staple of political campaigns partly because of the free media coverage they generate. Such trips get the candidates out of their power suits and out of Washington so they can travel the country and score face time with voters in small venues like diners and mom-and-pop shops.

Biden rolled across Iowa on an eight-day bus tour he dubbed “No Malarkey" in December 2019.

During his 2012 reelection campaign, President Barack Obama traveled though small-town Ohio on his “Betting on America” bus tour.

“It's always fun just being out of Washington, and for me to be able to interact with folks is wonderful,” Obama said at one stop.

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also traveled by bus when they campaigned for a second term.

The Democratic National Convention opens Monday.