This Town Has More Faith in Football Than Politics. Can Walz Make a Difference?

In a small city northwest of Pittsburgh, once home to one of the largest steel manufacturing plants in the United States, players on the Aliquippa High School football team paused their practice last August for a few unexpected visitors.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, showed up to give pep talks.

Introducing Mr. Walz, Ms. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, congratulated the team’s coach for winning last season’s state championship. Then he gestured toward Mr. Walz, saying, “We got a coach on our team, too.”

Mr. Walz was a high school football coach, and the Harris campaign has wanted voters to remember it — especially in swing states like Pennsylvania.

In Western Pennsylvania, football is so important that Mike Hall, an Aliquippa resident who used to work in catering, jokingly said that robbing the bank on fall Friday nights would be easy “because everyone is at the high school games, even the police.”

On Friday nights throughout the fall, football has been a balm to Aliquippa residents.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times