Kamala Harris campaigned in Madison, Wisconsin, the deep blue state capital and college town that Democrats hope will bring in enough voters to tip the election in the presidential candidate’s favor.

“We know this will be a close race until the end,” Harris said. “We are the underdogs in this race and we have a lot of hard work ahead of us.”

Wisconsin voters won razor-thin margins in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Donald Trump won the state in 2016 by about 22,000 votes, and in 2020 Joe Biden came by with just 20,000 more votes than Trump.

Polls in Wisconsin so far show Harris and Trump neck-and-neck. Three polls taken this week underscore how tight the race here could be: Polls by AARP, Marist and Quinnipiac University suggest the race here is nearly even, with Harris leading Trump by just one point each.

Along the way, Harris has emphasized her support for abortion rights, a centerpiece of her campaign and a galvanizing issue for young voters.

“It’s immoral,” Harris said of the numerous abortion bans implemented after Roe v Wade was overturned. “Let’s agree that you don’t have to give up your faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn’t tell her what to do.”

Harris described an encounter with the mother of a young woman who died of sepsis after she was denied abortion care in Georgia.

“Amber Nicole Thurman,” Harris said. “I promised her mother I would say her name every time.”

Whoever wins Wisconsin’s popular vote will earn the state’s full ten electoral votes, giving the state a disproportionate say in the presidential election, and groups like Madison’s large college population will play a crucial role in determining the outcome. Some of those students attended the Friday meeting.

“It’s so nice to see someone who is really happy,” said Kaitlin Olson, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. During Biden’s painful debate performance against Trump, Olson said, “It was like, ‘This is scary.’ Now that Kamala is running, I’m thinking, ‘Okay, a little more joy.’

“I think we came out higher than expected,” said Jake Leismer, a freshman who took the bus from campus and joined Olson and a group of students at the rally.

The Democratic-coordinated campaign, which is supporting Democrats during the election, has hired seven full-time campus organizers across the state and a youth organizing coordinator, according to a source familiar with the Harris campaign’s staffing efforts in Wisconsin. Kelly Conner, a campus organizer based in Madison, said the campaign has been met with enthusiasm — even a bonfire was organized to ceremonially burn copies of Wisconsin’s gerrymandered election maps, which the state abandoned this year after years of progressive and Democratic party organizing .

“We have a lot of volunteers who have never volunteered before and are eager to come out,” Conner said.

The youth effect in Wisconsin was on full display in 2023, when students turned out en masse to elect Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, creating a liberal majority on the bench. At the heart of the race was access to abortion, which has been in legal limbo since the fall of Roe v Wade triggered a 175-year-old ban in the state.

“They know the stakes,” Conner said. “This election is about fascism versus democracy, and students are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump never steps foot in the White House again.”