After two days on a bus tour through south-east Georgia with her running mate, Tim Walz, Kamala Harris arrived at an arena in Savannah to a boisterous crowd and told them that despite the state being a stretch, it is still winnable in November.

“Don’t pay attention to polls – we are underdogs,” the vice-president said, telling the roughly 9,500 attendees that they had “work to do” in order to secure victory. “We don’t mind hard work. Hard work is for workers.”

Thousands waited outside for hours as a spitting rain became a steady drizzle, which turned into an outright downpour, on a hot and characteristically humid Savannah afternoon. Inside, thousands of supporters filled out an arena usually reserved for minor league hockey games and concerts – taking up every last seat.

“It’s good to be back in Savannah,” she said, jumping right into a stump speech that, while familiar, nonetheless kept the crowd’s attention for the entirety of her remarks.

Recent polling has Harris and Donald Trump nearly tied in Georgia, an indication of how close the race is likely to be in the state that Joe Biden won in 2020 by just 11,779 votes.

During her brief remarks that lasted just under 20 minutes, Harris contrasted her campaign with that of Trump, who she criticized with her regular campaign line of moving the country backward, not forward. She touted policy plans such as affordable childcare and healthcare, paid family leave, expanding Medicaid and other aspects of what she called “an opportunity economy” focused on “building inter-generational wealth”.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I will always put the middle class and working class families first,” Harris said.

Some in the crowd said they were there to support a presidential campaign that says it’s listening in a state where Black voters haven’t always had a powerful voice – and in a city, Savannah, that hasn’t seen a visit from a presidential candidate since 1990, according to Mayor Van Johnson. But it’s these voters who were integral to flipping Georgia in 2020, electing the state’s first Black and Jewish senators in representatives Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and securing a Democratic majority in the Senate.

Harris noted that it’s these very voters who are perhaps even more integral to securing a Harris-Walz win in November.

Over the course of the last 24 hours, the Harris-Walz campaign has gotten a tour of the often overlooked corners of south-east Georgia, where a mix of Black Democrats and white Trump supporters have lined rural back roads to joyfully wave and angrily grimace and make obscene gestures, respectively.

“These aren’t roads that presidents typically drive down,” said Mark Lebos, a personal trainer who runs a gym in Savannah and volunteered to drive for the campaign’s caravan of vehicles carrying staff, supporters and press. “These are places where you know what the horizon is, and it’s right there at the end of your town.”

Inside the Enmarket Arena – recently built in a largely Black area west of Savannah’s historic downtown – a DJ played dance music and led the crowd in chants of Harris’s first name, saying there’s no excuse for not knowing how to pronounce it – mispronunciations that are a regular feature of Trump’s campaign rallies, where the former president often makes a joke of both her first and, sometimes, last names.

Ann Curry and Nancy Oosterhoudt were soaked by the time they got inside the arena but said the rain and the wait were well worth it for the chance to see a female presidential candidate who they said has a legitimate chance of taking the White House.

“It’s about saving democracy,” Curry said, nodding along as Oosterhoudt called Trump “unhinged”.

Oosterhoudt said reproductive rights are part of the reason she’s so fired up for Harris – and for ensuring that Trump doesn’t win the presidency and do any more damage to reproductive rights, such as the supreme court decision that overturned Roe v Wade, allowing states to make abortion, in some cases, effectively illegal.

“I just feel very strongly that the women not only of Georgia but the country will get behind her,” Oosterhoudt said of Harris. “I think the way she’s presented it makes it available for everyone – this isn’t just about abortion, this is about comprehensive reproductive rights.”

Oosterhoudt wasn’t alone – among the loudest cheers of the night came from a largely female crowd when Harris said the government should not “tell a woman what to do”, repeating her “out of their minds” line from the Democratic national convention to even more raucous cheers.

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Harris called recent actions taken by state legislators on reproductive rights “Trump abortion bans”.

Oosterhoudt noted that Trump has gone back and forth on the issue, praising the supreme court’s decision on Roe, only to claim last week that his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights”.

“Last week we heard he’s for reproductive rights but after that, who knows what’s going to happen?” Oosterhoudt said.

Harris’s entrance in the race immediately changed Democrats’ chances of winning the White House, but those chances still look like a toss-up as most polls put the contest between Harris and Trump within the margin of error. Still, Harris supporters are confident.

“I don’t pay attention to polls,” said Tiffany Kittles, 36, a teacher at a nearby private Christian school. “I listen to my students, people at my church and what people are saying on social media and to me, that’s a much better gauge.”

Like many in the crowd, Kittles is a woman of color who said Harris’s candidacy is “inspiring”. Kittles’s daughter, Taliah, ate popcorn as the pair waited for Harris to take the stage.

“She told me: ‘Mommy, a woman president? Wow,’” Kittles said. “She knows it’s a possibility now, and that’s inspiring for her.”

“She provides hope versus hate, doom and gloom,” Kittles added. “She represents what America looks like now. She also represents the future. Trump represents the past.”

Not everyone in the arena supported Harris. Twice, pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted her remarks and were shouted down by nearby supporters in the crowd before being escorted away with no apparent struggle.

Harris used the interruptions to address the conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian lives – some claimed with weapons paid for by the Biden administration.

“We are fighting for a democracy, and in a democracy, everyone has a right and should have their voices heard,” Harris said. “But on the subject, the president and I are working around the clock. We have to get a hostage deal done and a ceasefire.”