Kamala Harris and Joe Biden to hold first campaign event together

Kamala Harris jetted off to Detroit on Monday morning as part of a two-stop push that will end with her holding her first campaign event with the man she replaced on the ballot: Joe Biden.

The vice president boarded Air Force One with headphones on and her phone in her hand as she prepared for another swing with just nine weeks until election day. 

She pressed on headset and didn't acknowledge waiting reporters shouting questions.

Harris and Biden will connect in Pittsburgh, rallying union members in the critical battleground state.

The date and sitting for their first sighting together is significant: It's being held on Labor Day in a must-win state.

But their trip is being overshadowed by the war in the Middle East.

Before leaving for her stop, Harris will join Biden on Monday in the Situation Room to meet with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team to discuss the efforts to free the remaining hostages.

Israel said early Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. The deaths resulted in thousands protesting in the streets of Israel.

Harris has endorsed Biden's efforts to arm Israel and bring about a hostage deal and ceasefire. She also has raised concerns about the treatment of civilians in Gaza.

After the White House reunion, the duo will hit the road.  

Both Michigan and Pennsylvania make up the Democrats' 'blue wall,' a series of Midwest states considered a must win in order to keep the White House. Biden carried both states in the 2020 election but Donald Trump won them in the 2016 one.

The two will be joined in Pittsburgh by Governor Josh Shapiro, Senator Bob Casey, Lieutenant Governor Austan Davis, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, and Reps. Summer Lee, Madeleine Dean, Chris Deluzio.

Harris and her campaign have been careful about where they are deploying Biden. The president stepped down from the ticket in July when Democrats became concerned he would lose to Trump and take them down with him.

But he can still be an effective surrogate among older voters, white men and in Pennsylvania, the state where he was born and considers a second home.

He'll continue solo throughout the rest of the week: On Thursday, the president will be in Wisconsin (another 'blue wall' state) to tout his administration's investment in communities there. On Friday, he will go to Michigan to do the same.

Biden and Harris appeared together on Aug. 15 in Largo, Maryland, at an event touting the administration's work to lower prescription drug prices. But the visit was an official White House visit, not a campaign stop.

They were also on stage together after Biden spoke on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

Labor Day is the traditional start of the fall campaign season, when millions of voters start tuning in to the race.

Harris and her surrogates are on a Labor Day blitz: Running mate Tim Walz and his wife Gwen Walz will be in Milwaukee, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will be in Newport News, Virginia.

With less than three months to go until the election, Harris campaign Chair Jen O'Malley Dillon argues Harris and Walz are the 'clear underdogs' in the race.

'Donald Trump has a motivated base of support, with more support and higher favorability than he has had at any point since 2020,' she wrote in a campaign memo, adding 'the race will remain incredibly close, and the voters who will decide this election will require an extraordinary amount of work to win over. But we have the candidate, message, and operation that brings Americans together to chart a new way forward, so we can once again defeat Donald Trump.'

Both parties are worried about complacency – that their voters will simply stay home on Election Day.

Labor unions are a key Democratic consistency and can help drive out voters. Biden was the first sitting president to join a picket line, when he walked with striking auto workers in Michigan.

Harris has the endorsement of the United Auto Workers union, which has a strong presence in Michigan, and the United Steelworkers, which dominates western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh.

The largest union endorsement the Harris campaign lacks is Teamsters, which has so far held off from endorsing Harris or Trump.

The Harris campaign notes that under the administration, support for union membership has grown to its highest level in half a century.

The administration also extended overtime pay protections for workers and helped to create millions of union jobs through the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act.

The Pittsburgh stop will serve as Harris' ninth trip to Pennsylvania this year, while the Detroit visit will be her sixth to Michigan in 2024.

Harris' Monday stop in Detroit will target the area of the state that is one of the top Democratic strongholds in the country. She will address union members.

She will be joined by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, Rep. Debbie Dingell, AFT President Randi Weingarten, NEA President Becky Pringle, and UAW International President Shawn Fain.

Turnout in the city is expected to top 50% of registered voters for the general election, its city clerk told the Associated Press.

Polls in Michigan and Pennsylvania show Harris and Trump running in a dead heat.

Trump's campaign had no publicly announced Labor Day weekend events.

The former president will participate in a FOX town hall on Wednesday hosted by Sean Hannity, and later this week will address the Fraternal Order of Police at their fall meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina and hold a rally in Wisconsin.