PITTSBURGH _ Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine appeared together in a high school gym in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the heart of Democratic liberalism in Western Pennsylvania. And they performed like a home team trying to add to a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter.
"When your children and your grandchildren ask what you did in 2016, when everything was on the line, I hope you'll say you voted for a better America," Clinton said to thunderous applause from a capacity crowd of 1,800 at Taylor Allderdice High School. An overflow crowd of 1,250 people were gathered in an auditorium nearby.
Both she and Kaine touted what they said was mounting excitement for their bid: "This energy must be a Pittsburgh thing," said Kaine, who'd previously appeared with Clinton here after the Democratic National Convention. And Clinton sought to impress on voters the stakes for the election.
"Whatever issue you care about, it's going to be on the ballot," she said. "It may not be listed, but it's on the ballot."
But with polls showing Clinton pulling away from Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and many other states, she also repeatedly extended an olive branch to voters still considering Trump.
"You probably know people who are thinking about voting for Donald Trump," she said. "I want you to tell them that I understand that they need a president who cares about them ... and I want to be their president."
"Whether you vote for name or against me, I believe we can disagree without being disagreeable," she added later.
Still, Clinton didn't shy from attacking Trump himself, asserting that at last week's third and final presidential debate, Trump "did something that no other presidential nominee has ever done in either party. He refused to say he would respect the results of this election."
"Make no mistake about this, my friends: he is threatening our democracy," she added. She also responded to Trump's debate assertion that if he were in president, she'd be in jail _ a gibe that dovetailed with the chants of "lock her up" that are common at Trump rallies.
"Every time Donald Trump says he wants to jail his opponent, meaning me, I think, 'You know we don't do that in America.'"
In another gesture that suggests how the Clinton campaign is trying to extend the map, Clinton took time to flag Pennsylvania's Senate race, urging voters that Democrat Katie McGinty "is exactly the kind of partner we need in the Senate. But more importantly she's the kind of senator that Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania need."
She had harsher words for Republican incumbent Pat Toomey, who has neither endorsed nor rejected Trump's candidacy. After reciting a litany of Trump's statements about women and his questioning of President Barack Obama's birthplace, she asked, "How much more does Pat Toomey need to hear? If he doesn't have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump after all this, then can you be sure he'll stand up for you when it counts."
A spokesman for the Toomey campaign fired back that Clinton's remarks were "just further proof that hyperpartisan, ethically challenged Katie McGinty will be a rubber stamp for everything Hillary Clinton wants to do in Washington. Pat Toomey has been, and will continue to be, an independent leader in the Senate."
Kaine also took some shots at Trump in his own warm-up speech.
"Donald Trump had been talking a lot about stamina, but boy, at the end of the debates, he really looked like he was on the ropes," he said. As for Trump's claims that the election was rigged, "He's gotten to the end of the campaign, and he's insulted every possible group (so why not) insult the pillars of American democracy?
"He's losing, and he knows it," said Kaine.
But Kaine devoted much of his remarks to gender issues, which have gained increasing visibility due partly to Clinton's historic campaign to be the first female president, and in part to allegations of sexual misconduct by Trump.
"If I really think about it, I've only gotten into positions of leadership and responsibility because I've had a lot of support from women," Kaine said. "I was honored to have the chance to play the role for her that so many strong women have played for me."
"Just think about this," he said later. "Hillary's mom was born before women had the right to vote, and now Hillary's daughter will get to vote for her mom."
And it was Kaine who briefly addressed an overflow crowd who'd watched Clinton's speech on a screen.
"Pennsylvania is a checkmate state," he said. "If we win Pennsylvania, then you won't have to wait up until Mountain Time" to know who won.
Some 600 people were lined up half an hour before the doors were set to open.
"We're here with my two boys to see the woman who is about to be elected as the first female president of the United States," said Jessie Ramey of Point Breeze.
Ramey, who heads Chatham University's Women's Institute, said women's issues played a major part in building excitement for Clinton.
"I've seen a flip from 'I'll vote for anybody other than (Donald) Trump,' to real enthusiasm," she said. "I've seen that on reproductive justice and women's issues."
Trump may have focused the spotlight on such topics, however inadvertently, with a series of controversial remarks about women, and allegations that he has groped a series of women over the years. But while Ramey allowed that perhaps "more people know what sexual assault is now" because of Trump, "I'm hesitant to ascribe silver linings to him."
Linda DeAngelo, of Squirrel Hill, said that she'd been a supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders early on, but was backing the Democratic ticket "because of where she stands on the issues, and what's at stake in this election." She said that she was concerned that Trump was rallying his own supporters with claims that American politics was "rigged."
"I do worry about people being disaffected and distrusting the structure of our government after the election," she said.
