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It’s fair to say that Western Pennsylvania is the center of the political universe right now. But as a political reporter, I’ve been reminded lately that, as the Big Bang theory instructs us, the center of the universe is the place that everyone and everything is fleeing as quickly as possible. And on weeks like this — when each candidate announced plans to visit almost at the moment the other was taking the stage — I envy those distant galaxies.
Still, thanks to local visits this week by both Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, our place in the space-time continuum has given us a unique opportunity to observe both presidential candidates. Here are some takeaways.
Same region, different worlds
As was the case with his trip to Indiana, Pa. on Monday, Trump’s visits here have typically been to more rural and post-industrial areas outside of Pittsburgh. By contrast, while Democrats have ventured into those areas in the past month or two, when it came time for a policy speech this week, Harris returned to friendlier territory: the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. The different settings reflect the different stories the candidates tell: Trump’s pitch draws on the appeal of returning the country to a storied past, while Harris emphasizes the need to position it for an admittedly uncertain future.
While both visions aspire to revitalize American manufacturing, Trump’s approach relies heavily on tax cuts, a “drill baby drill” energy policy, and steep across-the-board tariffs on imports. Harris argues that since the cost of tariffs are added to prices, they amount to a tax on consumption. She seeks to incentivize certain kinds of production instead — using tax incentives to encourage green energy and other industries.
So in her visit, Harris boasted about federal assistance to Eos, a Turtle Creek battery maker that fits squarely into the green energy model. Trump, meanwhile, visited Smithton in Westmoreland County, where he heard concerns that solar-panel farms would displace conventional agriculture.
Good politicians borrow, great politicians steal
After Harris’ speech, Trump accused her of “plagiarizing” one of his policies: removing college-degree requirements from federal jobs as a way of expanding opportunity to working-class Americans. This follows up on his previous criticism of Harris for “copying” his idea of not taxing tips.
Which — fair enough! As president, Trump did seek to pare down the number of jobs that require college degrees four years ago. And he was the first to propose not taxing tips this year.
Whether anyone cares is a different question. And it’s a bit of a mixed message to say “My opponent is a Marxist who will destroy America — and she’s stealing my ideas!” Especially if the Marxists can say “back at you.”
While in Indiana, Trump briefly reiterated his proposal to cap credit-card interest rates at 10 percent. As Western Pa. native Mark Cuban noted, that’s a more stringent limit than Bernie Sanders has proposed. Trump has said his cap would be temporary, but it’s of a piece with his broader reinvention of the Republican Party.
Where once the party stressed a laissez-faire approach to trade and business practices, Trump and his allies are happy to talk about punishing everyone from Disney to John Deere for pursing “woke politics” or cheaper labor overseas.
But ideological flexibility — or “pragmatism” as Harris called it — is part of politics. In 2022, when Trump backed Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz’s bid for Senate, he castigated rival Dave McCormick as “the candidate of special interest and globalists.” In Indiana this week, Trump hailed McCormick’s effort to topple Bob Casey this fall.
“I love this guy,” said Trump to an audience that rose to give McCormick a standing ovation. “He’s a military hero, he’s a business hero.”
Too much vs. not enough?
The rap on Harris has been that her campaign has been light on policy. And until this week, that was true of her visits to Pittsburgh, which focused on camera-friendly appearances at Primanti’s or in the Strip District. Her campaign will tell you that part of the challenge she faces is the fact that voters haven’t had a chance to get to know her, given her late replacement of Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.
Her speech this week did offer some policy details — which are fleshed out at greater length here — but some reporters criticized it for offering few new proposals. Many proposals Harris discussed — such as an enhanced child-care credit for newborns — had already been unveiled. Much of her economic approach expands on ideas propounded by Biden, whose name she didn’t mention. She also didn’t discuss fracking for natural gas, which she said years ago she opposed.
Harris has since renounced that position, and in fact the industry has done well during the past few years. She could have made that case again — but sometimes, it’s best to just stop talking.
That’s a lesson Trump struggles with, not least when it comes to the overturning of abortion rights engineered in part by his Supreme Court appointees. Last week, the pundit class goggled over an all-caps social media post in which Trump asserted that if he were reelected, “WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION.” But he repeated that message in Indiana, adding that women voters “will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today” if he wins in November. “You will be protected and I will be your protector.”
His audience applauded those sentiments, but it’s hard to imagine them helping with voters outside the auditorium. A recent Monmouth University survey suggests 57% of Pennsylvania voters trust Harris more on the issue, compared to 39% who say they’d trust Trump more. That’s a much bigger trust gap than the ones favoring Trump on such issues as the economy or even immigration.
In any case, it’s not like Harris and Trump won’t get another chance to address such questions. There’s still a month and a half to go, and Trump is already due to return to the region on Oct. 5.
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Bill O'Driscoll
Arts & Culture Reporter
