Vice President Kamala Harris might have traveled on Friday to Philadelphia or Milwaukee for the umpteenth time, but motivating tuned-out voters in battleground states required something different.

So her campaign engineered a trip to Houston — the largest city in Texas, decidedly not a presidential battleground state — where she would be joined at a rally by Beyoncé and the country music legend Willie Nelson, both beloved natives of the state. Their ability to transcend traditional politics, Harris aides hope, will deliver the sort of viral content that cuts through a cluttered media environment.

Ms. Harris’s rally in Houston will focus on the strict abortion ban enacted in Texas after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and is meant to offer a warning about the potential spread of such restrictions to voters in faraway states who will soon decide this year’s presidential election.

In short, the Harris team wants to put what happens deep in the heart of Texas on display for the whole country to see.

“If it takes Vice President Harris to elevate the voices of women in Houston so they are heard in Madison and Kalamazoo and Pittsburgh, that’s what we’re going to do,” said Trey Martinez Fischer, the Democratic leader in the Texas State House.

Just about everything related to Ms. Harris’s Houston trip is engineered to create news that will reach voters in the battleground states. Before the rally with Beyoncé and Mr. Nelson, she is scheduled to record a podcast interview with the popular podcaster Brené Brown, a University of Houston professor and vulnerability researcher who has an audience of millions that skews heavily female.

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