Kamala Harris spent Sunday with a singular focus: Philadelphia.

The decision to devote the entire day to Pennsylvania’s largest city, nine days before Election Day, underscored the heavily Democratic city’s importance to the vice president — and also a central challenge facing her campaign: If she doesn’t drive turnout among Black and Latino voters there, she’ll lose the state and her best path to the White House.

Philadelphia is nearly 40 percent Black and 15 percent Hispanic. President Joe Biden won 81 percent of the vote there in 2020, and at over 10 percent of the statewide vote, it’s a critical piece of the Blue Wall Harris is scrambling to maintain to beat Donald Trump.

Well aware of those challenges she’s facing, Harris launched a full-court press for Black and Latino votes across Philadelphia on Sunday, returning to some of the key retail politicking that she’s recently eschewed in favor of mega-rallies amid rising security concerns for both campaigns. From the pulpit of a predominately Black church to a barbershop chair to a Puerto Rican restaurant, Harris warned Black and Latino voters that Trump is “full of grievance” and argued a second Trump presidency would harm them and their families.

“This election is about two extremely different visions for our nation,” Harris told a rally crowd in the city Sunday evening. “One, Donald Trump’s, who is focused on the past and himself … We are focused on the future.”

Philadelphia may be even more central to Harris’ victory than it has been for Democrats in the past, former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), who represented the Lehigh Valley north of the city, said in an interview.

While Harris has a strong chance to do better in Philadelphia’s affluent, suburban collar counties than Biden did in 2020, some Democrats worry that she may also be poised fall short of Biden’s benchmarks in much of the rest of the state — especially in overwhelmingly white, working-class areas.

“Kamala Harris needs just a huge plurality coming out of the Philadelphia area,” Dent said. “Black and Latino men in Philadelphia are essential for her,” he added.

That’s why any slippage among key, Democratic-leaning groups in Philadelphia could be so damaging.

“Kamala Harris has been having an authentic conversation with Black and brown men throughout the course of this campaign,” said Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, a 35-year-old Democrat who is the first Black lieutenant governor in the state’s history.

“She’s listened to them. She’s put forward proposals to move to improve their lives and their families’ lives,” Davis added in an interview. “And she’s not taking anything for granted, which is why you’re seeing, in the closing days of the campaign, she’s spending so much time courting those voters.”

But for all of Democrats’ dominance in the Philadelphia market in recent elections, Harris is facing headwinds after high grocery prices and inflation have hit voters harder there than in most other areas of the country. That’s adding to her challenge in winning over more young Black and Latino men especially, who polls suggest are concerned about the economy and may be willing to break for Trump.

At a West Philadelphia barber shop, Harris sought to speak to those concerns directly during a conversation with young Black men moderated by state Rep. Jordan Harris. One attendee raised the burden of student loan debt and other challenges for young people trying to get ahead, as Harris nodded along. Another voter said he was an educator, and Harris replied by stressing the importance of Black teachers in the classroom.

“You know that the statistics are: If a Black child has a Black teacher, by the end of third grade they’re like 13 percent more likely, more likely to go to college,” Harris said. “If they have had two Black teachers by third grade, something like 30 percent more likely.”

Harris later told a youth basketball group at a nearby gym that they were “role models” and she was “proud” of them. “I like to say: ‘Chin up, shoulders back, always,’” she added, after several students said they had lost a recent game.

Then, during a stop at Freddy & Tony’s, a Puerto Rican restaurant in North Philadelphia, Harris also touted her recently announced plans for what she described as “a task force for Puerto Rico,” if elected. She also ticked through her plans to help families “build intergenerational wealth” by boosting through her plans to boost federal aid for home ownership and small businesses.

“Obviously, the goal is to win. But the goal is to also, in this process, build community and build coalitions,” Harris said, “And to remind people that we’re all in this together.” More than 1 million Pennslyvanians have already voted early by mail. But a majority of voters are expected to cast their ballots on Election Day. Some Pennsylvania Democrats have also raised alarms about troubles within the Harris campaign’s organizing in the state, especially among Black and Latino voters in Philadelphia.

Throughout Sunday, Harris continually invoked Trump, as he geared up for a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Most notably, the vice president, who in recent months has been more careful to limited interactions with the press, spoke with reporters briefly for a brief period to warn voters that the former president “is full of dark language that is about retribution and revenge.”

“And so, the American people have a choice. It’s either going to be that, or it will be me there, focused on my to-do list,” Harris said, adding Trump “talks about America being the garbage can of the world.” She added: “The momentum is with us.”

In another split-screen moment, around the same time as Harris was speaking at the Puerto Rican restaurant, pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referenced the island as “a floating island of garbage” while speaking at Trump’s New York rally. Harris officials, in response, noted swing states like Pennsylvania have significant Puerto Rican populations, who could decide the election.

Harris, asked specifically by reporters if she believes her campaign is getting the amount of support among Black voters that she’ll need to win the state, said she was “feeling very optimistic about the enthusiasm that’s here and the commitment from folks of every background.”

Harris, as she has in recent days, made abortion a key part of her closing message to attack Trump, telling CBS News in an interview that aired Sunday that she will make codifying Roe v. Wade through legislation her “first priority” if elected. However, she again declined to say if she would support any restrictions on abortion as part of any bill.

Harris’ comments follow former first lady Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in Catholic-heavy Scranton, Pennsylvania, featuring abortion rights as a central plank of their closing message to men in recent days. The pair made impassioned pleas to men who may be inclined to support Trump that the lives of the women they love are at stake if he’s elected.

If Harris loses Pennsylvania, she has an incredibly narrow path to the White House. Biden is set to travel to the city on this Friday to tout his administration’s “historic support for unions,” according to the White House. The move is an apparent effort to boost Harris in the city, after several high-profile snubs from male-dominated unions. The local firefighters union chapter in Philadelphia was a key faction pressing leaders of the International Fire Fighters Association leadership to withhold the group’s coveted endorsement from Harris.

Harris herself acknowledged the importance of the city as an electoral firewall during a visit to a local African American-themed bookstore owned by Ann Hughes, the mother of state Sen. Vincent Hughes, as Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker looked on.

“We’re going to do it. Victory runs through Philly. It runs through Pennsylvania,” Harris said.