By SCOTT BAUER and AAMER MADHANI

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump will host dueling rallies within 7 miles of each other Friday night in the Milwaukee area as part of a feverish event, the final push for votes in Wisconsin’s largest county.

Milwaukee is home to the most Democrats votes in wisconsinbut its conservative suburbs are where most Republicans live and are a critical area for Trump as he tries to recapture the state he won in 2016 and lost in 2020. One of the reasons for his defeat was a drop in support in those suburbs in Milwaukee and an increase in the Democratic vote in the city.

“Both candidates recognize that the road to the White House runs right through Milwaukee County,” said Hilario Deleon, chairman of the county’s Republican Party.

The dueling rallies — Trump in downtown Milwaukee and Harris in a suburb — could be the candidates’ last appearances in Wisconsin before Election day. Both parties say the race is tight again for the state’s 10 electoral votes. Four of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than one point or less than 23,000 votes.

Former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, gestures after speaking at a campaign rally at the Resch Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris arrives to speak at a campaign event Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

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Former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, gestures after speaking at a campaign rally at the Resch Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

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Era absentee ballots from Milwaukeewhich are usually reported early in the morning after Election Day, which offered Wisconsin for president Joe Biden in 2020.

Democrats know they need to bring voters to Milwaukee, home to the state’s largest black population, to counter Trump’s support in the suburbs and rural areas. Harris hopes to replicate and surpass the 2020 turnout in the city, which voted 79 percent for Biden that year.

Trump is trying to cut into the Democratic margin. Deleon called it a “lose with less” mentality.

Before going to Milwaukee, Harris campaigned in the southern Wisconsin town of Janesville, where he voiced his support for organized labor in a speech at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local.

“No one understands better than a union member that as Americans we rise or fall together,” Harris said. She promised to eliminate “unnecessary” degree requirements for federal jobs and push private sector employers to do the same.

She called Trump “an existential threat to America’s labor movement.”

Harris said Trump was “one of the biggest manufacturing job losers in American history,” hanging on the word “loser,” as she was flanked by union workers in bright yellow T-shirts.

Trump, whose base includes working-class voters, has made sporadic efforts to reach out to the rank and file members who have traditionally been the core of the Democratic coalition.

Trump was in the Detroit area, stopping at a restaurant in Dearborn, the country’s largest Arab-majority city, to meet with supporters. Many in the community remain incredulous after his first act in office in 2017 was to sign an executive order effectively banning travel from predominantly Muslim countries.

“We stop. We’ve been doing it for nine years, and now we’re stopping,” Trump said later at the start of a rally in Warren, Michigan. “And hopefully we’ll go to the next phase, which turns our country around.”

In Milwaukee, many Democrats are “anxious and cautiously optimistic,” said Angela Lang, founder and executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities in Milwaukee.

“Especially given 2016, when there wasn’t the same amount of energy, I think it’s clear that the dignitaries learned lessons about the importance of Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole,” she said.

In another late-night outreach effort aimed at black voters, former President Bill Clinton campaigned with local faith leaders Thursday night at a center celebrating African-American music and arts in Milwaukee.