JOHNSTOWN, Penn. — It keeps coming up, in these blue-collar towns, at these Hillary Clinton rallies in factories and on main streets: We like that Tim Kaine's Catholic.

More than that: We like that the Democratic nominee for vice president wears it on his sleeve.

The Virginia senator's religion, and the story of his Jesuit education and the year he spent on mission in Honduras, seems to resonate with Clinton supporters in these important regions of this crucial battleground state.

"He's a person like me, and he's going to support our efforts, said Charlene Sullivan, a Clinton volunteer from Johnstown.

This city has struggled in the fall of American manufacturing. Once home to 12,000 steelworkers and as many as 60,000 people, Johnstown today has about 20,000 residents. It is precisely the sort of place the Clinton campaign points to when it talks of massive plans for infrastructure investment, funded in part by tax increases on the wealthy and an "exit tax," as Clinton calls it, on businesses that ship jobs overseas.

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Clinton gave a 30 minute speech here off a teleprompter Saturday, instead of the 10-to-15 minute stump speech she'd given at events elsewhere in Pennsylvania Friday. Kaine was hoarse as he introduced the former secretary of State. Former President Bill Clinton and Kaine's wife, Anne Holton, sat on stools as the running mates spoke. Bill Clinton chewed gum.

At one point – in a now repetitive bit about GOP nominee Donald Trump's empire manufacturing goods in other countries – Hillary Clinton said her husband was wearing a shirt made in Reading, Pennsylvania. The former president smiled, opened his jacket wide and gave the applauding crowd a thumbs up.

Kaine and Holton are riding with the Clintons on this three-day bus trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio that has hit the manufacturing theme hard, and always with organized labor in the forefront. The group splits after the weekend, and Kaine is due back in Richmond Monday for an evening rally there.

Kaine said he reached his son, Nat Kaine, a Marine who deployed this week to Europe, on the telephone Saturday, and that he spoke to the Clintons.

"I'm still sort of pinching myself," the senator said.

Diane Enos, a social worker who attended the Johnstown rally, said Kaine "seems to have good values."

"I was raised Catholic, so that was impressive," she said. "The fact that he never lost an election was impressive."

Clinton mentions this on the campaign trail: Kaine has a perfect track record in races for city council, mayor of Richmond, lieutenant governor, governor and U.S. senator.

Donald Bonk, whose family owned a grocery store in Johnstown for 41 years, said the story Kaine told at the Democratic National Convention, about attending a Jesuit school for boys, had gravity.

"'Men for others' really stuck with me," Bonk said, repeating Kaine's school's motto. "I grew up going to Catholic school."

This connection could prove important, University of Mary Washington political scientist Stephen Farnsworth said.

"For a long time Republicans have tried to claim that they were the religious party," Farnsworth said. "An aggressive argument by Kaine to counter that can only help the Democrats."

"Catholics are one of the key swing groups in American politics," Farnsworth said.

They're a key demographic in important swing states, too, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, Farnsworth said. The Clinton campaign has focused early on Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the Trump campaign put out a statement Saturday, likening Clinton's visit to Johnstown to "a robber visiting their victim."

"The state of Pennsylvania has lost one in three manufacturing jobs since China was put in the (World Trade Organization) with Hillary's support," a Trump campaign spokesman said.

Clinton and Kaine assured the crowd Saturday that she has the only workable economic plan in this race. She pointed to a recent Moody's analysis that declared Trump's proposals would create a lengthy recession.

Kaine promised the union crowd that Clinton would oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, something she's said before, but which became a squishier issue this week when Gov. Terry McAuliffe suggested she'd back the deal with some changes.

The Clinton campaign quickly shot that down, and McAuliffe backtracked.

Though Clinton and Kaine found a friendly crowd inside the massive facilities of Johnstown Wire Technologies Saturday, they were in uphill-battle territory for her campaign. Cambria County, where Johnstown is located, went 58 percent for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.

On Saturday, as the campaign rolled in more than two hours late for its event, a few dozen Trump supporters lined a road outside the factory holding umbrellas against the light rain and signs against Clinton.

"Killary killed coal," one of them said.

Inside the event, John Ratica rationalized this away.

"You have drunken sailors no matter where you go," he said. "You know that. You're from Newport News."

Fain can be reached by phone at 757-525-1759.