EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Amy Klobuchar cast herself as the candidate from the heartland Saturday in the first campaign trip of her presidential run, visiting a state Hillary Clinton narrowly lost in 2016 and emphasizing her deep Midwestern roots, her knowledge of rural America and her record of bipartisanship while drawing sharp contrasts to President Trump on issues from climate change to immigration.

Ms. Klobuchar pointedly chose Wisconsin — the state that Mrs. Clinton did not visit during the general election campaign in 2016 and lost to Mr. Trump by less than one percentage point. The Wisconsin defeat, along with narrow losses in Michigan and Pennsylvania, clinched the election for President Trump and inflicted a devastating wound that still haunts Democrats in Wisconsin and beyond.

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In an already crowded Democratic primary field, Ms. Klobuchar was eager to highlight what her campaign hopes can set her apart: her Midwestern base and her electoral dominance in many rural, red counties in Minnesota populated by the kind of voters who have largely deserted the Democratic Party. She campaigned in Iowa later in the day.

“We’re going to look at each other and look at the challenges we face in this country,” she told an enthusiastic crowd jammed into the Shift Cyclery and Coffee Bar. “The challenge that we see in both Minnesota and Wisconsin is about the rural-urban divide. What I’ve decided to do in our state is to go to places that maybe we didn’t focus on enough in the last few years. That includes our rural areas.”