WASHINGTON – WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris is making his first visit to a swing state on Tuesday after garnering enough support from Democratic delegates to win his party’s nomination to challenge the former president donald trumptwo days after President Joe Biden dropped his bid for re-election.
As the Democratic Party continues to rally around her, Harris is traveling to Milwaukee, where she will hold her first campaign rally since launching her campaign on Sunday with Biden’s endorsement. Harris has raised more than $100 million as of Sunday afternoon and has won support from Democratic officials and political groups.
Tuesday’s visit was scheduled before Biden ended his campaign, but it took on new resonance as Harris prepares to take up her party’s mantle against Trump and seeks to project calm and confidence after weeks of Democratic Party confusion over Biden’s political future. Biden.
The visit comes a week after the Republican National Convention ends in the city, and as Harris works to hone her message against the GOP nominee, with just over 100 days until Election Day. Wisconsin is part of the “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Democrats, which is key to their 2024 plans.
The vice president previewed the themes that will be prominent in her campaign against Trump on Monday during a stop at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, contrasting her time as a prosecutor with Trump’s criminal convictions — “I know the Donald Trump type,” she said. — and presenting herself as a defender of economic opportunities and access to abortion.
“This election will present a clear choice between two different visions. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time when many of us had full freedoms and equal rights,” she said in a statement in response to the AP delegate count. “I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom, and ensures that every person has the opportunity to not just survive, but to thrive.”
“I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already placed faith in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people,” she added.
As of Monday night, Harris had the support of well more than the 1,976 delegates she will need to win on the first ballot, according to AP’s delegate count. No other candidates were named by a delegate contacted by the AP.
Still, the AP is not calling Harris the presumptive new candidate. This is because convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the August convention or if Democrats pass a virtual call before that meeting in Chicago.
AP count is based on interviews with individual delegates, public statements by state parties, many of which have announced that their delegations support Harris en masse, and public statements and endorsements by individual delegates.
Harris would be joined by top Wisconsin elected officials, including Governor Tony Evers, Senator Tammy Baldwin, Lt. Governor Sara Rodriguez, Attorney General Josh Kaul, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski and the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Ben Wikler, also as state labor leaders.
