Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Dem ticket plans bus road-trip in PA and OH after convention

Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine are scheduled to depart Philadelphia on Friday, the day after the convention ends, for a bus tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Democrats' campaign said Sunday. They will push economic issues and try to counter Trump's appeal in Appalachian region.

After the Democratic National Convention ends, Hillary Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine plan to embark Friday on a three-day bus tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio with a heavy emphasis on the economy and their plans to create jobs.

A sendoff rally will be held on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, the Clinton campaign said Sunday.

The Democratic ticket will make several stops in Pennsylvania Friday and Saturday, including in Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, in addition to unscheduled stops where Clinton and Kaine will greet voters, the campaign said. On Saturday evening and Sunday, the bus tour will wend its way across Ohio, with scheduled stops to include the depressed former steel town of Youngstown, and Columbus, the state capital.

Republican Donald J. Trump's campaign has targeted the Rust Belt in designing its path to victory, believing that the real-estate mogul can do particularly well with working-class white voters in the Appalachian region that runs through western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. The planned bus tour represents an attempt to counter the GOP's efforts there, allowing Clinton and Kaine to speak directly to voters in the region.

They also are expected to visit the Johnstown, Pa. area in Cambria County. Mitt Romney won the county with 58 percent of the vote in 2012, and it lines up demographically as prime Trump territory. Cambria County is 94 percent white and has a median family income of $42,000; white working-class voters have formed the spine of Trump's electoral coalition.