Democrats Begin Highly Targeted Campaign Up and Down Pennsylvania Ballot

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party began a program Wednesday to target messaging across Pennsylvania for candidates from the Harris-Walz ticket down to school boards.

The party said it was the largest and most coordinated campaign it had conducted in Pennsylvania.

Canvassers will be given locally tailored talking points. In a town where conservatives control the school board, the focus might be on book bans; in a rural county without good internet access, it might be on broadband funding from the infrastructure bill President Biden signed; in Pittsburgh, where a bridge collapsed in 2022, it might be on funding for road repairs.

The canvassers will also have campaign literature to give out, tailored to each of the state’s 67 counties and 203 State House districts, or even smaller areas. Each piece of literature — there are 395 in all — will have a QR code leading to a list of every candidate on local ballots and to voting information like polling locations that can be updated daily if details change.

The state party is spending at least $500,000 on the effort, called Vote Local PA.

The program is an acknowledgment of Pennsylvania’s central role this year. Its 19 electoral votes could tip the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump. The re-election campaign of Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat, could decide control of the Senate. At least four House races are competitive, and both chambers of the divided state legislature could flip.

But Vote Local PA is also an attempt to address a serious vulnerability for Democrats: the extent to which their base has consolidated toward cities. Though the party has gained ground in the suburbs, it has hemorrhaged support in exurban and rural areas, forcing it to rely more on high turnout and overwhelming margins in its strongholds.

Mitch Kates, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, described Vote Local PA as a rejection of concentrating efforts in Democratic counties and an effort to narrow loss margins elsewhere. Losing a Republican county by 25 points instead of 30 could matter in a statewide race.

“This program isn’t the solution, but it’s certainly a weapon in the arsenal of being able to fight the good fight in every single county,” Mr. Kates said. “We are giving our people the tools and resources they need to effectively have conversations with their neighbors.”

In past elections, said Lori McFarland, the chairwoman of the Lehigh County Democratic Committee, she would stuff literature for each local candidate into bags that she suspected voters threw away instantly. Her team will now have single cards for each of seven State House districts within the congressional district covering Lehigh County, which is represented by the vulnerable Democratic incumbent Susan Wild.

Judy Hines, the vice chair of the Democratic Party of Mercer County — a rural area between Pittsburgh and Erie — said the increased coordination among campaigns, and between the county and state parties, felt “like in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ when it’s black and white and it goes into color.”