Hours before Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz were scheduled to appear in Rochester on Sunday afternoon, Democrats rallied in the streets. And many said Harris’s succession to Joe Biden as the nominee had transformed the campaign, bringing a buzz they hadn’t felt since Barack Obama captured the party’s imagination and the White House in 2008.

“I supported Joe, but I think the change has breathed new life into the campaign,” said Molly Romigh of Beaver Falls, standing on Adams Street before noon.

Harris and Walz were scheduled to speak at an invitation-only campaign event Sunday afternoon along with other Democrats running for state office, but Democrats in the overwhelmingly Democratic county were excited about their new slate of candidates and about hosting their party’s top candidates on the eve of this week’s Democratic National Convention.

Harris has made repeated visits to Western Pennsylvania in her capacity as vice president, and both she and Walz were joined on Sunday by their husbands, Douglas Emhoff and Gwen Walz. It was the first time the two couples have publicly campaigned together. And their supporters say the slate was well-suited to address current issues.

Since a Supreme Court majority led by Trump’s nominee struck down the constitutional right to abortion, “I think women are realizing they need a stronger voice” than they would get from Republicans, Romigh said. “I think they understand what it would mean to have a man in the White House taking away their rights.”

When Biden topped the ballot, “I don’t want to say I was depressed, but I wasn’t looking forward to the election,” said Kimberly Foster, also of Beaver Falls. “I didn’t feel like Biden would get the support he needs because of his age.”

But “when he stepped down and she took the initiative, it was like a new life for the campaign,” she said.

Not all of them were fans: Two pickup trucks with Trump flags and a vulgar reference to Biden could be seen driving down Adams Street and circling the area.

“It’s just sad,” said Center Township resident Jody Bell as she watched the trucks drive by. She said she has been an ardent Biden supporter because “he’s a good and decent person.”

“I cried and got over it,” she said when Biden withdrew from the campaign. “But I cried.”

The stop in Rochester was part of a tour that began when Harris and Walz arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport to unveil a new campaign bus. They were scheduled to visit other sites in Western Pennsylvania throughout the afternoon before departing the airport Sunday evening for Chicago, site of the Democratic National Convention this week.

The choice of Rochester had a certain symbolic significance, underscoring Democrats’ plans to make their case in the white working-class communities that have given Donald Trump his strongest base of supporters since 2016. Although the collapse of the steel industry hit Beaver County hard, it continues to have an above-average manufacturing sector. Just a 10-minute drive from Rochester is Shell’s “cracker plant,” hailed as the largest industrial facility in the area in a generation and a spinoff of the region’s natural gas industry – even if Questions about environmental balance and economic impact are increasing.

Trump won the district this year and in 2020 by a margin of about 58 to 40 (and visited the cracker site during a campaign stop thinly veiled as a visit to the White House in 2019). But the choice of Walz, an outspoken hunting enthusiast, as Harris’ running mate is just one sign that the candidates want to continue Joe Biden’s efforts to build connections with white workers. Harris and Walz have also courted union members – a key part of Biden’s victorious electorate in 2020 – while promoting a populist economic message.

In recent days, Democrats have touted successes on legislation that will allow the government to negotiate some drug costs for Medicare recipients. In a recently unveiled economic plan, Harris has promised to boost housing and fight food price inflation, which she says is the result of price gouging by the increasingly consolidated meatpacking industry. (There is disagreement among economists about how big a role such business tactics played in price spikes.and noted that supply chain disruptions during the COVID era contributed significantly to the rise in inflation rates, which have only recently begun to ease.)

Democrats “understand that our district is now purple, and they’re going to fight for every vote they can get here. And rightly so,” said Tony Amadio, the Democratic county commissioner of Beaver County, who was present at the event. He said voters in the district “want to hear what she’s going to do for the people. They’re worried about Medicare and Social Security.”

The visit to western Pennsylvania comes as polling trends and the momentum of the campaign have been upended by Harris’s replacement of President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. After Biden’s disastrous debate performance earlier this summer, polls showed him trailing Trump among Pennsylvania voters. More youngest Opinion pollHowever, it has shown that Harris has a lead that hovers on the margin of error.

Most political forecasters say Harris’ success depends primarily on a win in Pennsylvania. But there is a lot at stake here for both campaigns, and Trump himself visited the eastern part of the state on Saturday. During a speech in Wilkes-Barre, he made a typically complicated case against Harrisin which criticism of her policies and vague political promises was mixed with remarks that degenerated into personal insults and the claim that she was “much better looking” than the candidate.

Trump will return to the state on Monday for an appearance in York.