RANKIN, Pa. (RNS) — Beneath the lofty, rusted towers of the Carrie Blast Furnaces, a retired industrial site on the edge of Pittsburgh, Kamala Harris made her next-to-final bid to Pennsylvania voters with the help of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, and performances by pop star Katy Perry and Grammy-winning soul singer Andra Day.
A Christian who is vocal about her faith, Day was accompanied on keyboard by her pastor as she sang Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.”
“Mama may have, papa may have, But God bless the child that’s got his own,” she sang. The classic, about God acting on behalf of those who take action for themselves, echoes a point Harris has made throughout her campaign, including when it comes to acting on their beliefs. “Faith is a verb,” Harris is known to say.
Day introduced her hit anthem “Rise Up” by recalling a story from the Bible’s Book of Exodus. “As a believer, there’s a Scripture where Moses’ arms are too heavy as he’s praying for people, and there’s this picture that Aaron comes and lifts his arms for him … and I want all of us to be that for her, as she does this critical, critical, critical work,” she said about Harris.
Day concluded her set with an improvised sung prayer: “Bless this election tomorrow,” she sang. “Let it go the way of love and light and peace and joy and freedom and equality.”
Harris, who appeared upbeat, had come from a rally in Reading, in southeastern Pennsylvania, and later went on to Philadelphia. The Pittsburgh-area stop at the former U.S. Steel blast furnace, a national historic landmark, nodded to Pennsylvania’s industrial heritage and was a down-to-the-wire plea for blue-collar voters to help deliver the battleground state’s 19 electoral votes.
“We are ready for a president who knows the true measure of a leader is not based on who you beat down, it is based on who you lift up,” she told the crowd. “Let us do the work as we work toward this win, of building up community and coalition, and reminding everyone that we have so much more in common than what separates us.”
“God bless you,” she concluded, “and God bless the United States of America.”
Robin Pearson wore a T-shirt made by her cousin, featuring Vice President Kamala Harris’ face on a postage stamp, to the rally on Nov. 4, 2024, at the Carrie Blast Furnaces in Rankin, Pennsylvania. RNS Photo by Kathryn Post
Many voters who made their way to the Pittsburgh suburb Monday night (Nov. 4) said faith was in part what compelled them to attend. Robin Pearson, who wore a blue Kamala shirt made by her cousin and a Harris-Walz hat, made a reference to the Bible’s Psalm 12 when asked her reasons for being there.
“He boasts about the cravings of his heart, he blesses the greedy,” she said about former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. “In his pride, the wicked man does not seek him, but says, I ain’t never asked God for forgiveness. In all his thoughts, there is no room for God.”
Pearson added that she was weary of comparisons between Trump and Jesus. Harris, she said, is the candidate who most demonstrates the fruits of the spirit.
Zack Palmer, a Catholic, called Harris “the religious option,” saying she represented Christian values such as personal liberty, caring for others and grace. Other Catholic voters agreed. Jennifer Hoza said she attends church every Sunday and tries to be “pro-life” but is not a single-issue voter.
Another Catholic voter, Valentina Hernandez, said she came to the rally because Harris represents love and healing. “If he was here today,” she said about Jesus, pointing around her, “I feel like he’d be here.”
A young Muslim who wore a dark brown hijab to the rally, Fatima, and who asked to be identified by her first name only, said the possibility of having Harris as America’s first female president inspired her to come out, adding that policy issues more than faith brought her to the rally. But Fatima spoke of Kamala’s “aura,” as well.
Another woman, who asked to remain nameless, spoke about how her Jewish faith makes room for abortion rights. Judaism informs her politics, she said, because in Judaism, “you’re supposed to do what’s right.” Given that, “I don’t think we have a choice here,” she said about the presidential candidates.
A member of a Black Baptist church — Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, led by the Rev. Amos Brown — Harris was raised by her Hindu mother but frequently visited 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California, as a child. Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, is Jewish; Tim Walz, her running mate, is Lutheran.
As the Harris rally got underway, Trump made his final bid to Pennsylvania voters at PPG Paints Arena, nine miles away in downtown Pittsburgh. He credited God with his survival of the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Many people say that God saved me in order to save America. Many many people are saying that,” said Trump. “And with your help we will fulfill that extraordinary mission together.”
Kamala has integrated faith language into her final arguments. On Sunday, at Detroit’s Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ, she spoke about the Prophet Jeremiah, holding him in contrast to leaders of his time who enriched themselves while the poor suffered. “That’s why he spoke hard truths. He challenged those in power and confronted injustice,” she said.
Deborah Nelson, a Baptist who came to Monday night’s rally from nearby Pittsburgh, said it was in part Harris’ intentional outreach at Black churches that inspired her attendance at the event.
“I’ve seen her in church the last couple Sundays,” she said. In contrast, she observed, “I’ve seen Trump peddle a Bible with his name inside of it.”
